A    SPANISH 
HOLIDAY 


BY 


CHARLES    MARRIOTT 

\  » 


WITH    EIGHT    ILLUSTRATIONS    BY 

A.    M.    FOYVERAKER,   R.B.A. 

AND    TWENTY-TWO    OTHER    ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW    YORK 
JOHN    LANE   COMPANY 

MCMVIII 


TO 

BERNARD   WALKE 


226281 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   I 

PAGE 

Getting  there — James  in  Paris — Our  travelling  companion — 
The  Landes— The  Pyrenees— Irun  .  .  .1 

CHAPTER   II 

Changing  money — San  Sebastian — The  barber — The  churches 
of  Santa  Maria  and  San  Vicente 18 

CHAPTER   III 

The  mother  of  all  the  soldiers — Basque  villages — Lost  in  Bilbao 
—The  Sailors'  Institute 31 

CHAPTER   IV 

Domesticated  lightning — The  Basque  provinces — Bilbao  mar-    < 
ket — A  piece  of  etiquette — The  game  of  Pelota — Bathing  at  Las 
Arenas — The  Fiesta  dc  Navarra — Effect  of  music — The  Sociedad 
Bilbaina — An  evening     .  48 

CHAPTER   V 

A  little  meat  —  On  the  road — Guernica  —  An  embarrassing 
moment — Maria  Teresa — The  club  ......  77 

CHAPTER   VI 

The  old  Basque — Pelota — The  Casa  de  Juntas  and  the  Tree 
of  Guernica — The  Song  of  the  Tree— Plymouth  Rocks — A  col- 
lector of  pictures — Dancing — Ramon — "  Ahpahsten  !  "  .  .  .97 

rii 


viii  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

CHAPTER   VII 

Farewell  to  Don  Jose — A  Basque  St.  Ives — The  collector  of 
customs  —  "  At  your  service  "  -  The  obsession  of  the  knife — 
Mosquitos  and  scrcnos  —  The  hospitality  of  carabineros  —  The 
little  mad  railway  again 119 

CHAPTER   VIII 

The  origin  of  the  Basque  language  —  A  white  night — The 
eagle  of  Durango — To  climb  Amboto  ......  141 

CHAPTER   IX 

The  eccentricities  of  Englishmen  —  The  Padre  of  Izurza — 
Vicente,  the  coach-driver — The  ascent  of  Amboto — Urquiola — 
The  province  of  Alava — Ochandiano — Manuel,  the  woodman — 
Villar-real — A.  faux  pas — New  character  of  churches — Threshing- 
floors— Vitoria  .159 

CHAPTER  X 

Vitoria— Santa  Maria  and  the  Villa  Suso— The  battlefield  of 
Vitoria — Miranda  de  Ebro— Civil  Guards — The  red-headed  girl 
—The  Pass  of  Pancorbo— "Agua  fresca  !  "—The  plains  of  Old 
Castile — The  .beggars  of  Burgos  —  A  confusion  of  tongues — 
Burgos  CathedraT^The"  Coffer  of  the  Cid— The  Englishman 
of  Burgos — Burgos  s*  amove — "  A  wee  bit  heather  " — The  timid 
gentleman 171 

CHAPTER   XI 

The  climate  of  Burgos — The  Canons'  Mass — San  Jose — San 
Esteban  —  The  Castillo  —  The  Spanish  v  and  b  —  The  Convent 
of  Las  Huelgas — A  jnesta — BeggafsP^Dust — The  white  world 
of  La  Cartujade  Miraflbres — "  From  Maple's" — A  cold  evening 
at  Burgos 197 


CONTENTS  ix 

CHAPTER   XII 

PAGE 

A  city  of  churches — Santa  Agueda,  San  Nicolas,  San  Gil — 
The  character  of  Burgos — The  Cid — The  Casa  de  Miranda — 
The  railway  station  —  Cosas  de  Espana  —  Cruelty  to  animals — 
Time-tables  —  The  priest  of  Logroiio  and  his  companion — 
"  Life  "  in  Corufia — The  Borough  Road — First  sight  of  olive  trees 
— Castilian  evening — "Aguafresca!" — Civil  Guards — "Merengues" 
—The  national  vice — VaUadolid — Our  thoughtful  companion — 
El  Escoriar— TSTudrid  218 


CHAPTER   XIII 

Breakfast  in  Madrid — The  bridge  of  suicides — The  Puerta  del 
Sol — The  Prado — A  capital  without  character — The  new  Madrid 
— A  city  of  prohibitions — The  heat— Mistaken  for  Basques — 
Risking  sunstroke — The  Prado  Museum  :  closed — The  Botanical 
Garden  :  closed — "Alguna  cosa  fresca  " — Madrid  at  night — Plea- 
sure without  gaiety — Nightmares 236 


CHAPTER   XIV 

Terror  of  the  sun  —  The  Botanical  Garden  —  The  Prado 
Museum  —  Velazquez — Goya  —  Titian  —  General  character  of 
Spanish  painting  —  Why__we_did_DOt  go  to  the  bull-fight — 
Toreros  —  The  Andalusiaii  gipsy  —  The  house  of  the  bomb — 
The  Royal  Palace  ^~The  Plaza  Mayor  —  Autos-da-fe  —  The 
Rastro— Madrid  after  midnight—The  museum  of  modern  art  .  261 


CHAFPER   XV 

First  view  of  Toledo— The  Tagus— The  centre  of  Spain- 
Toledo  Cathedral — Swords — Young  tormentors — El  Cristo  de  la 
Luz— The  Puerta  del  Sol— The  women  of  Toledo  —  Military 
cadets — The  Mozarabic  Mass — Santo  Tome  and  San  Juan  de  los 
Reyes — The  treasures  of  the  cathedral — The  Puente  de  San 

Martin— The  Virgin  of  Carmen 282 

b 


x  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

CHAPTER   XVI 

PAGE 

Good-bye  to  Spain — The  possibilities  of  third-class  travelling 
— A  long  journey — Miranda  again — A  little  drama — Our  captain 
— Basque  songs — "  Athens  was  once  a  famous  place  " — Down  the 
Bilbao  river — Crossing  the  Bay — Finding  Ushant — The  Long- 
ships — Cardiff  Roads 305 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

FROM   DRAWINGS   BY   A.    M.    FOWERAKER 
BRIDGE  OF  SAN  MARTIN,  TOLEDO,  BY  MOONLIGHT    Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

A  BASQUE  FARM  87 

A  CORNER  IN  LEQUEITIO      .  130 

A  MOUNTAIN  ROAD    .                      .                      .  162 

THE  QUINTA,  BURGOS  217 

IN  OLD  CASTILE         .           .  230 

THE  PUERTA  DEL  SOL,  MADRID     ...  256 

THE  HOSPITAL,  TOLEDO       .                                           .  304 

FROM   PHOTOGRAPHS   BY   THE   AUTHOR 

A  BASQUE  VILLAGE    .  35 

IN  THE  ARENAL,  BILBAO      .  53 

BILBAO  MARKET,  SUNDAY  MORNING  66 

CHURCH  OF  AMOREBIETA  80 

GUERNICA                    .  119 

STREET,  LEQUEITIO    .  124 

HAKE  BOAT,  LEQUEITIO       .  126 

ONDA"RROA        ...  138 

THE  PORTICO,  DURANGO  (Exterior).           .                       .  142 

xi 


xii  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

FACING   PAGE 

THE  PORTICO,  DURANGO  (Interior)  ^ 

150 
WHITE  OXEN,  DURANGO       .  J 

GATEWAY,  DURANGO  .  .  .  .  .  .152 

ROAD  TO  VITORIA,  DURANGO          .  .  .  .158 

THE  CANTON  DE  SOLEDAD,  VITORIA         .  .  .         173 

SANTA  MARIA,  VITORIA        .  .  .  .  .174 

ARCO  DE  SANTA  MARIA,  BURGOS    ....         185 

WEST  FRONT  OF  CATHEDRAL,  BURGOS      .  .  .         189 

PUERTA  DEL  SARMENTAL,  BURGOS  CATHEDRAL  .          .         197 
ST.  BRUNO  AND  THE  LILIES,  LA  CARTUJA  DE  MIRA- 

FLORES       .......         210 

VELAZQUEZ,  PRADO  MUSEUM,  MADRID      .  .  .247 

THE  PUERTA  DEL  SOL,  TOLEDO       ....         284 

IN  THE  ZOCODOVER,  TOLEDO          ....         293 


A    SPANISH    HOLIDAY 


CHAPTER   I 

GETTING  THERE — JAMES  IN  PARIS — OUR  TRAVELLING 
COMPANION — THE  LANDES — THE  PYRENEES — IRUN 

THE  way  things  happen  generally  turns  out 
to  be  at  least  more  amusing  than  the  way 
they  were  meant  to  happen,  so  I  shall  make  no 
apology  for  the  statement,  which  looks  odd  in 
print,  that  if  we  hadn't  hoped  to  go  to  Italy  we 
should  never  have  gone  to  Spain.  If  anything 
certain  could  be  predicted  of  the  movements  of 
a  tramp  steamer  sailing  out  of  a  little  Cornish 
port,  we  meant  to  go  to  Italy.  James,  who 
lives  on  the  spot,  promised  to  give  me  at  least 
three  days'  notice  of  the  steamer's  departure — 
wherever  she  might  be  going.  Her  probable  port, 
he  said,  was  Genoa. 

The  next  week  or  so  passed  in  pleasant  specu- 
lations :  how  far  was  Rome  from  Genoa  ?  Should 
we  really  see  Naples — and  live  ?  Could  we  afford 
to  go  to  Venice?  I  had  already  mapped  out  a 
possible  itinerary  when  I  got  a  casual  message 


2  .A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

from  James;,  that  there  didn't  seem  to  be  a  steamer 
•  saiK'rigi  to  '.'Italy  within  the  time  at  our  disposal, 
out  would  I  like  to  go  to  Spain  ?  Or,  we  could 
go  to  Antwerp  "any  day."  It  was,  I  think,  the 
fine  freedom  of  the  latter  alternative,  rather  than 
intelligent  preference,  which  made  me  say  em- 
phatically : 

"Oh,  Spain  for  me." 

"  All  right,"  said  James,  "  well  go  to  Spain." 
James  is  riot  the  real  name  of  him  whom, 
when  I  began  to  write  these  notes,  I  saw  it  would 
be  tiresome  to  speak  of  as  "my  friend"  or  "my 
companion."  Out  of  a  list  of  some  twenty  names 
which  I  put  before  him  he  hesitated  for  some  time 
between  Horace  and  James,  and  finally  chose  the 
latter.  So,  without  prejudice,  I  call  him  James. 
It  is  perhaps  already  obvious  that  the  direction 
and  character  of  our  travels  were  to  be  influenced 
by  his  personality.  That  personality  will,  I  trust, 
emerge  by  the  way,  and  I  will  content  myself  now 
with  remarking  that  its  principal  characteristic  is 
resourcefulness.  This  may  be  illustrated  by  a 
single  anecdote.  James — and  this  lent  a  hopeful 
definiteness  to  the  Spanish  alternative — actually 
had  been  before  with  a  cargo  of  china  clay  out 
of  the  little  Cornish  port  to  Bilbao.  Alone  and 
hungry  in  a  mountain  village,  it  seemed  to  him 
that  his  bodily  salvation  depended  upon  eggs. 
He  didn't  know  the  Spanish  for  eggs.  Sur- 
rounded, according  to  his  account,  by  half  the 
village,  he  assumed  a  squatting  ,  position  and 


GETTING   THERE  3 

cackled,  with  immediate  and  delighted  compre- 
hension of  his  needs. 

It  was  probable,  he  said,  that  we  also  should 
go  to  Bilbao.  Contrary  to  its  geographical  situa- 
tion and  political  importance,  then,  Bilbao  be- 
came for  me  the  centre  of  Spain.  I  got  a  large 
scale  map  of  the  country  and  began  to  estimate 
distances  and  calculate  expenses — from  Bilbao. 
Through  a  friend  I  obtained  the  address  of  an 
Englishman  living  in  Bilbao,  who,  with  a  kindness 
which  in  the  result  he  far  exceeded,  promised  to 
help  us  forward  on  our  journey  into  a  strange 
land.  At  this  point  James  let  fall  the  remark 
that  the  steamer  might  go  to  San  Sebastian  or 
Santander  or  Coruna  or  Vigo.  He  even,  though, 
I  must  admit,  apologetically,  went  on  to  say : 

"  I  suppose  you  wouldn't  like  it  as  well  if 
we  went  to  Portugal  ? " 

I  saw  that  it  was  time  to  make  a  stand. 

"James,"  I  said  "we  are  going  to  Bilbao. 
For  the  purposes  of  our  expedition  anything  that 
happens  between  our  point  of  landing  and  Bilbao 
simply  doesn't  exist." 

Although  James  had  been  to  Spain  before, 
the  extent  of  our  ignorance  of  the  present  state 
of  civilisation  in  that  country  may  be  gathered 
from  the  fact  that  we  quite  seriously  proposed 
on  landing  to  assume  the  cloaks  and  the  broad- 
brimmed  hats  of  the  operatic  Spaniard,  and  also 
thought  it  necessary  to  provide  ourselves  with 
revolvers.  It  was,  by  the  way,  a  first  principle 


4  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

that  wherever  we  went  we  should  take  no  more 
luggage  than  we  could  carry  on  our  backs  in 
ruck-sacks.  To  the  astonishingly  complete  as- 
sortment of  clothes  and  materials  for  washing 
and  shaving  which  may  be  crammed  into  these 
receptacles,  we  added  a  tin  of  China  tea,  a 
compass  and  a  pocket  camera.  We  also  supplied 
ourselves  with  passports.  James  said  that  he 
knew  "  a  little "  Spanish,  but  the  example  I 
have  quoted  of  his  resourcefulness  encouraged 
me  to  believe  that  I  should  do  wisely  at  least  to 
take  the  edge  off  my  entire  ignorance  of  that  lan- 
guage. My  discretion  in  giving  an  hour  a  day  to 
one  of  those  useful  little  paper-covered  volumes 
in  a  "  Simplified  Languages "  series  was  vindi- 
cated when  James  said  on  the  eve  of  starting : 

"  I  say ;  you'll  have  to  do  the  talking,  you 
know;  I'll  do  the  shooting." 

On  the  eve  of  starting,  James  also  discovered 
that  an  absolutely  unbreakable  engagement  would 
keep  him  in  England  for  twelve  hours  after  the 
steamer  had  sailed  for  Bilbao. 

Then  I  took  matters  into  my  own  hands. 
A  whole  chapter  might  be  written  about  the 
inner  circle  of  the  merchant  shipping  world  of 
the  port  of  Cardiff;  a  world  which  seems  to 
make  its  headquarters  in  a  small  grocer's  shop 
and  a  general  store  kept  by  a  blue-eyed  Norse- 
man and  a  swarthy  Italian,  known  respectively 
to  their  familiars  as  Stockfish  and  Macaroni ;  but 
this  is  not  the  place  for  it.  For  two  days  we 


GETTING   THERE  5 

haunted  the  Cardiff  Docks  and  kept  appointments 
with  and  endured  the  stories  of  skippers  in  the 
little  back  parlour  of  the  grocer's  shop  in  the 
hope  of  chancing  on  a  vessel  sailing  to  Bilbao. 
For  by  this  time  even  James  agreed  that  it 
would  be  as  well  to  stick  to  the  one  fixed 
quantity  in  our  so  cloudy  plans,  and  Bilbao  was 
burned  upon  our  hearts.  We  learned  many 
strange  things  about  the  sea,  we  were  offered  a 
barque  for  sale,  we  were  invited  to  go  to  any 
port  in  Europe — except  Bilbao.  At  last,  on  a 
drizzling  forenoon,  alongside  of  a  rusty  tramp 
under  the  coal-tips  of  the  Bute  Docks,  we  thought 
we  had  achieved  Bilbao.  But  we  did  not  like 
the  look  of  our  skipper.  His  being  a  cargo 
steamer,  it  would  be  necessary  for  us  to  sign-on 
as  nominal  members  of  his  crew,  and  he  was 
without  exception  the  surliest  man  I  have  ever 
met.  The  only  point  in  his  favour  was  that  he 
alone  out  of  all  the  shipping  world  of  Cardiff 
really  was  going  to  Bilbao,  though  touching 
at  St.  Nazaire,  and  he  was  willing — and  even 
greedily  anxious — to  take  us  for  a  consideration. 
We  had  got  so  far  as  to  take  our  places  amongst 
a  crowd  of  firemen  before  the  wired-in  desk  of 
an  office,  and  I  was  trying  a  pen,  when  James 
touched  my  arm. 

"Do  you  realise,"  he  said,  "that  before  we 
get  to  Bilbao,  we  shall  have  killed  that  brute  or 
he  will  have  killed  us?" 

We  picked  up  or  ruck-sacks,  walked  out  of 


6  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

the  building  and,  so  far  as  I  remember  without 
consultation,  made  our  way  to  the  office  of 
Messrs.  Cook  and  asked  for  two  tickets  to  the 
Spanish  frontier.  Our  plans,  which  had  begun 
with  a  vague  dependence  on  the  movements  of 
a  tramp  steamer,  which  might  or  might  not 
happen  to  be  sailing  to  a  Spanish  port,  had 
hardened  into  a  fixed  determination  to  get  to 
Bilbao  by  any  means  whatever.  Once  across  the 
water  we  were  prepared,  if  necessary,  to  tramp 
to  Bilbao.  We  were  given  tickets  to  Irun  and 
directions  how  to  proceed  further.  An  hour 
later  we  were  on  our  way  to  London,  and  before 
eight  o'clock  the  next  morning,  the  4th  of  July, 
we  were  in  Paris. 

James  had  never  been  to  Paris  before,  and 
so  we  decided  to  spend  the  day  there.  Those 
first  few  hours  with  James  in  a  foreign  city 
considerably  enlarged  my  knowledge,  which  I 
had  supposed  to  be  intimate,  of  his  personality. 
Next  to  resourcefulness  I  found  that  its  most 
prominent  characteristic  is  a  constitutional  in- 
ability to  accept  things  as  they  may  happen  to 
be.  Show  him  an  order  or  a  prohibition  and  he 
is  uneasy  until  he  has  evaded  it.  This  does  not 
proceed  from  insularity;  he  is  one  of  the  least 
aggressively  "  British  "  Englishmen  I  know,  and  I 
have  never  seen  a  man  more  immediately  loved 
by  foreigners,  as  by  his  own  countrymen,  of 
every  class.  It  is  merely  that  he  must  satisfy 
himself  that  the  thing  can  and  ought  to  be  done 


JAMES   IN   PARIS  7 

differently.  In  Rome  he  will  do  as  Rome  does, 
but  only  after,  as  if  compelled  by  some  inner 
force  for  which  he  is  not  responsible,  he  has  by 
word  or  action  expressed  his  opinion  of  its  un- 
reasonableness. We  went  to  the  Louvre — he  is 
fond  of  pictures — and  within  five  minutes  he 
was  mentally  rehanging  the  Salon  Carrd 

"  Shouldn't  have  that,"  he  murmured  to  him- 
self as  he  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  polished 
floor ;  "  I  should  put  that  there,  and  that  there." 

When  we  left  the  gallery  we  sunned  our- 
selves in  the  more  formal  part  of  the  Garden 
of  the  Tuileries  and  watched  the  children  play- 
ing the  then  newly-revived  game  of  Diabolo. 
We  were  very  tired,  and,  owing  to  our  sudden 
change  of  plan,  imperfectly  washed,  and,  to  say 
the  least  of  it,  not  dressed  for  Paris.  There  were 
plenty  of  vacant  seats,  but  James  said: 

"I'm  going  to  lie  on  the  grass." 

"All  right,"  I  said,  "but  you'll  be  turned 
off." 

That  was  enough ;  he  stepped  over  the  low 
railing  and  in  a  few  seconds  was  fast  asleep. 
The  little  chattering  children  fell  silent  over 
their  game  of  Diabolo  and  put  their  fingers  in 
their  mouths ;  the  scandalised  bonnes  on  the  seat 
beside  me  held  up  their  hands  and  under  their 
snowy  frills  conferred  together  in  whispers.  Be- 
fore long  a  gendarme  came  round  the  bushes 
which  lined  the  curving  walk.  I  believe  that 
for  the  moment  he  thought  that  James  was 


8  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

dead.  It  was  comical  to  see  indignation  battling 
with  concern  on  his  bearded  face  as  he  bent 
over  and  shook  him  gently  by  the  shoulder. 
James,  who  knows  no  French,  opened  his  eyes 
and  smiled  up  at  him  sweetly  though  sleepily,  and 
then,  rising  to  his  feet,  invited  me  to  explain  that 
we  didn't  know  it  was  forbidden  to  lie  on  the 
grass.  But  it  was  James's  smile  rather  than  my 
apology  which  soothed  the  outraged  official. 

James  then  said  that  he  was  hungry.  I  pro- 
posed a  price  fixe  dinner  at  a  little  restaurant  I 
knew  of  near  the  Ecole  des  Beaux-Arts  or  a 
chdteaubriand  at  a  neighbouring  creamery.  James 
said  that  he  thought  the  restaurant  would  be  more 
amusing.  The  moment  we  were  seated,  however, 
and  the  waiter  had  taken  us  in  hand  with  that 
protecting  kindness  which  is  so  grateful  to  the 
Englishman  abroad,  I  saw  the  "No  you  don't" 
look  come  into  James's  eyes.  He  said  that  after 
all  he  thought  he  would  have  two  boiled  eggs  and 
a  glass  of  hot  milk ;  he  was  not  feeling  very  well. 
I  said  that  in  that  case  we  ought  to  have  gone  to 
the  creamery.  James  opened  his  eyes  wider  and 
said: 

"  What,  do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  in  a  place 
like  this  they  can't  boil  me  a  couple  of  eggs  ?  " 

I  admitted  that  of  course  they  could,  but— 

"  Of  course  they  can,"  said  James.  "  Can't 
you,  Johnny  ? " 

Such  is  the  effect  of  James's  personality  that 
" Johnny"  not  only  did,  but  for  the  next  half- 


OUR  TRAVELLING  COMPANION  9 

hour  remained  his  worshipping  slave,  though  their 
intercourse  was  limited  to  smiles  and  gestures. 

I  think  that  Spain  really  began  for  both  of  us 
when  at  seven  o'clock  we  descended  from  the  large 
hall,  glowing  with  pictures  of  eternal  Spring,  of 
the  Gare  d'Orleans  to  the  dim-lit  departure  plat- 
form, and  saw  the  word  "  Midi "  on  the  dark-green 
coaches  of  the  train  that  was  to  carry  us  to  Irun. 
A  few  people,  the  figures  of  romance,  flitted  rest- 
lessly up  and  down  the  long  platform  in  the  gloom 
as  if  to  control  their  excitement.  One  felt  that 
every  now  and  then  they  whispered  to  themselves 
or  to  each  other,  "  We  are  going  South  !  we  are 
going  South ! "  and  it  was  hard  to  shake  off  the 
delusion  that  we  should  emerge  directly  from  this 
twilight  into  the  full  blaze  of  the  meridional  sun. 
We  found  an  end  compartment  occupied  only  by 
a  small,  neat,  intelligent-looking  young  French- 
man, who  was  already  making  business-like  pre- 
parations for  his  comfort  during  the  night.  He 
greeted  us  pleasantly  with  the  remark,  "  We  are 
not  too  many,"  and  we  at  once  entered  into  an 
alliance  of  three  to  keep  the  compartment  to  our- 
selves. He  asked  us  how  far  we  were  going,  and 
said  that  he  himself  was  going  to  Leon,  but  in- 
tended to  break  his  journey  at  San  Sebastian, 
which  was  a  beautiful  place  where  one  could 
bathe.  He  was  a  mining  engineer  returning  from 
his  holiday. 

"  I  am  always  glad  to  get  back  to  the  South," 
he  said,  "  I  do  not  feel  well  in  the  North ;  the 


10  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

people  in  the  North  talk  about  nothing  but 
work." 

He,  himself,  with  his  round,  compact  head, 
blue  eyes,  and  little  fair  moustache,  was  clearly  of 
the  North — I  should  say  from  Normandy — but  it 
was  easy  to  understand  his  meaning.  He  was  no 
luxurious  idler ;  his  every  word  and  every  move- 
ment gave  the  impression  that  he  was  more 
practical  and  more  energetic  than  the  majority  of 
even  mining  engineers,  but  he  had  lived  long 
enough  in  the  South  to  see  through  the  essential 
humbug  of  the  convention  that  "work"  is  the 
proper  end  of  man. 

We  carried  on  our  conversation  in  an  extra- 
ordinary mixture  of  English,  French,  and  Spanish. 
The  last  language  our  new  friend  was  evidently 
picking  up  again  with  pleasure  and  some  difficulty, 
after  disuse.  Occasionally  he  referred  to  a  pocket 
dictionary,  and  he  seemed  glad  for  his  own  sake  to 
encourage  us  to  enlarge  our  scanty  store  of  Spanish 
words  and  phrases. 

Misled  by  preparations  for  the  night — the  rugs 
and  pillows  strewn  about  the  carriage — I  was  a 
little  startled  when  at  twenty  minutes  to  eight  the 
train  moved  out  of  the  dusk  of  the  station  into  a 
still-golden  evening.  It  was  as  if  with  anticipa- 
tion of  a  new  experience,  made  vivid  by  the  sound 
of  a  still  stranger  language  than  that  I  had  heard 
all  day,  I  had  lost  the  sense  of  what  day  it  was. 
Paris  was  already  a  memory  a  little  removed. 
Already  the  houses  and  gardens  of  this  environ- 


OUR  TRAVELLING   COMPANION     11 

ment  seemed  subtly  different  from  any  that  I  had 
seen  in  France.  We  were  going  South.  The 
knowledge  that  we  were  to  be  carried  unseeing 
in  the  night  through  towns  and  cities  familiar 
from  books — through  Orleans,  Tours,  Poitiers — was 
more  thrilling  than  if  we  had  been  going  to  stare 
at  them.  We  should  have  been  to  Tours  and  kept 
our  illusions. 

The  engineer  opened  his  bag,  produced  news- 
papers, guide-books,  maps,  and  time-tables,  and 
helped  us  to  plan  out  our  journey  beyond  the 
frontier.  We  must  leave  the  train  at  I  run,  take 
the  Madrid  express,  and  change  at  San  Sebas- 
tian to  the  local  line  for  Bilbao.  We  could  not 
see  much  of  San  Sebastian  in  the  two  hours' 
interval,  but  we  did  not  feel  attracted  by  the 
Casino  and  the  bathing  which  appealed  to  our 
brisk  companion,  and  we  instinctively  saved  up 
our  appreciations  for  the  place  which  was  nomi- 
nally the  starting-point  of  our  Spanish  pilgrim- 
age. The  engineer  intended  to  spend  a  day  and 
a  night  at  San  Sebastian  as  a  final  relaxation 
before  going  on  to  his  work  in  the  wild  and 
desolate  region  of  Leon,  which  he  said  was  "a 
terribly  cold  place  in  winter/'  He  spoke  of  his 
miners  with  affection,  though  as  lawless,  and  need- 
ing a  firm  hand  and  constant  supervision. 

We  drew  the  green  shade  over  the  lamp  and 
settled  ourselves  on  the  long,  broad  seats  of  the 
carriage.  There  was  room  on  the  one  side  for  the 
engineer  and  myself  lying  at  full  length  with  only 


12  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

our  feet  overlapping,  and  a  ruck-sack  makes  an 
excellent  pillow,  but  I  was  for  a  long  time  too 
excited  to  sleep,  though  this  was  our  second  night 
out  of  bed.  James  had  the  other  seat,  shortened 
by  the  corridor,  to  himself.  I  learned  with  re- 
morse, for  I  had  been  a  little  cross  with  him  at  the 
restaurant,  that  he  was  feeling  very  unwell,  but  he 
was  soon  sleeping.  At  some  hour  in  the  night,  at 
some  station  I  did  not  know,  the  door  opened 
quietly,  and  with  infinite  caution  so  as  not  to  dis- 
turb us,  a  pale  man  wearing  a  boina — the  Basque 
form  of  the  Breton  bonnet — climbed  in  and 
cramped  himself  into  the  corner  at  James's  feet. 

I  awoke  out  of  a  doze  just  before  dawn. 
Peering  through  the  window  I  could  dimly  make 
out  dark,  parallel  lines  in  the  fields,  and  with  a 
strange  thrill  I  understood  that  they  were  vine- 
yards. Then  we  were  crossing  a  wide  river,  pale 
under  the  lightening  sky.  Under  the  further 
bank  lay  a  boat  with  a  curious  net  similar  to  that 
in  "  Le  pauvre  Pecheur  "  of  Puvis  de  Chavannes. 
A  few  moments  later  we  were  at  Bordeaux. 

When  we  went  to  the  buffet  for  coffee  and 
rolls  we  noticed  a  new  character  in  the  appearance 
of  the  few  people  who  at  that  early  hour — not 
yet  four  o'clock — were  hanging  about  the  station. 
They  were  darker  and  softer,  more  graceful, 
though  more  free  and  energetic  in  their  movements 
than  the  people  of  the  France  we  knew.  Their 
voices  had  a  new  quality,  as  if  ripened  by  the  sun. 
Most  of  the  men  wore  the  boina.  It  looked  odd 


THE   LANDES  13 

to  see  a  lithe,  ivory  pale,  dark-eyed  young  man, 
with  a  picturesque  bonnet  slung  over  his  ear, 
tapping  axle-boxes,  an  act  which  with  us  is  as- 
sociated with  the  least  romantic-looking  type  of 
man.  We  moved  on  again,  the  engineer  becoming 
more  restlessly  happy  with  every  kilometre  further 
south.  Occasionally  he  broke  into  a  little  scrap 
of  song.  Our  fourth  companion  had  disappeared 
as  unobtrusively  as  he  came ;  none  of  us  had  ex- 
changed a  word  with  him.  We  passed  vineyard 
after  vineyard,  the  vines  looking  for  all  the  world 
like  currant  bushes  in  a  market  garden,  and  fields 
of  maize,  the  broad  green  leaves  having  a  strange 
effect  of  dignity  in  the  growing  dawn.  The  houses 
we  saw  were  all  of  the  same  type,  a  type  which  I 
had  never  seen  before  except  in  pictures ;  low 
and  four-square,  whitewashed  and  sometimes  half- 
timbered,  with  low-pitched  roofs  of  dark  red,  semi- 
cylindrical  tiles.  Many  of  them  had  little  rude 
balconies  with  trellised  vines  in  front,  and  the 
mulberry  tree  was  common  in  their  gardens. 

Soon  we  came  to  a  region  of  pine-woods 
growing  in  a  country  which  in  places  was  covered 
with  gorse,  heather,  and  bracken.  The  sight 
awakened  some  sleeping  memory  of  a  geography 
lesson,  mixed  up,  too,  with  a  story  of,  I  think, 
Erckmann-Chatrian  in  my  mind,  and  before  I  had 
consciously  considered  where  we  should  be,  I 
found  myself  murmuring,  "  We  are  in  the  Landes." 
It  was  from  now  that  I  ceased  to  regret  that  we 
had  missed  the  voyage  and  come  overland  like  any 


14  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

tourists.  Nature  has  arranged  that  the  landward 
approach  to  Spain  shall  be  like  an  austere  pre- 
paration for  a  festival,  and  the  hour  gave  us  the 
full  effect  of  its  impressive  monotony.  Every- 
where there  were  pine  trees.  Eastward  the  dawn 
glowed  redly  through  their  trunks — a  visual  effect 
of  such  intensity,  that  by  some  trick  of  association, 
perhaps  through  the  likeness  of  the  clustered  stems 
to  organ  pipes,  it  was  translated  for  me  into  the 
sound  of  organ  music,  as  if  a  solemn  prelude  to 
the  day.  On  the  western  side  a  white  mist  lay  on 
the  ground,  beginning  to  rise  and  drift  in  thin 
spirals,  and  here  and  there  giving  the  mirage  effect 
of  water ;  though,  indeed,  what  we  saw  may  have 
been  water,  for  I  believe  that  there  are  salt  lakes  in 
this  region.  In  the  distance  isolated  pine-woods 
showed  as  deep,  smoky-blue  silhouettes. 

Fixed  to  the  trunk  of  nearly  every  tree,  at  a 
height  varying  from  one  to  six  feet  from  the 
ground,  was  a  little  tin  cup  to  collect  resin.  How 
often  this  is  done  during  the  life  of  the  tree  I 
don't  know,  but  many  of  them  had  old  scars  in 
addition  to  the  open  wound.  Black  and  white 
Swiss  cows  with  soft-toned  bells  at  their  necks 
wandered  among  the  trees  or  knee-deep  in  the 
bracken.  The  combination  of  hot  sun  with  a 
"  nip  "  in  the  air,  the  thin  scent  of  pines  and  mist, 
and  the  predominance  of  heather  and  bracken  and 
blackberry  canes  gave  to  the  morning  the  "  feel " 
of  an  English  autumn  though  the  season  was  full 
summer. 


THE   PYRENEES  15 

From  Dax  we  had  our  first  sight  of  the 
Pyrenees.  They  were  the  first  mountains  I  had 
ever  seen,  and  the  pale,  far  peaks  gave  me  an 
indescribable  thrill.  It  is  possible  that,  more  than 
most  mountains,  the  Pyrenees  gain  from  the  level 
lines  above  which  they  are  first  caught  sight  of, 
but  I  was  immediately  struck  by  their  unex- 
plained appearance.  That,  rather  than  greater 
height,  seemed  to  me  the  difference  between  a 
mountain  and  a  hill.  Even  the  highest  hills  are 
implied  in  the  growing  uneasiness,  the  troubled 
aspiration  of  the  land  about  them ;  they  are 
merely  the  summit  of  a  wave  or  the  highest  of  a 
series  of  waves ;  they  at  once  fulfil  and  explain 
the  anatomy  of  the  land  ;  if  they  were  not  there — 
to  use  an  Irishism — they  ought  to  be ;  but  moun- 
tains happen  without  warning  or  preparation. 
They  are  "  monstrous  "  in  the  better  meaning  of 
unnatural.  From  the  summit  of  the  highest  hill 
in  Cornwall — and  we  have  some  respectable  hills 
in  Cornwall — one  sees  the  "why"  of  it  in  the  lie 
of  the  country  for  twenty  miles  round,  carried  out 
in  plan  by  a  corresponding  swell  in  the  coastline, 
or  a  reef,  or  a  chain  of  little  islands — like  the 
isolated  chords,  the  hop,  skip,  and  jump,  in  the 
concluding  bars  of  music.  But  the  Pyrenees 
happen  across  the  narrowest  portion  of  the  land 
they  divide  into  France  and  Spain ;  they  leave  off, 
there  is  nothing  to  let  them  down  into  the  sea  at 
either  end.  The  comparison  is  not  really  ridiculous, 
because,  whatever  the  difference  in  scale,  one 


16  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

might  reasonably  expect  the  mountain  to  repeat 
the  conditions  of  the  hill.  But  the  mountain  has 
no  conditions ;  it  cannot  be  predicted  from  the 
hill;  it  is  "there."  It  may  be,  of  course,  that  it 
is  finally  a  matter  of  scale,  that  the  mountain  is 
so  big  that  one  cannot  take  in  its  relation  to  the 
land ;  but  the  really  important  truth  remains  that 
the  emotional  effect  of  the  mountain  is  different 
not  in  degree  but  in  kind  from  the  emotional  effect 
of  the  hill.  I  don't  know  how  far  the  Pyrenees 
differ  from  other  mountains  in  their  sudden  emer- 
gence, but  I  am  persuaded  that  it  is  this  character 
of  the  unexplained,  rather  than  mere  height  or 
mass,  which  gives  to  mountains  their  power  over 
the  imagination. 

This  is  a  digression,  but  I  may  be  pardoned  for 
wondering  a  little  at  my  first  sight  of  mountains. 
As  we  drew  nearer  to  the  peaks  and  were  able  to 
distinguish  their  delicate  veining  of  light  and 
shade,  they  took  on  for  all  their  strangeness  a 
certain  familiarity.  Where  had  one  seen  them 
before,  those  meaningless  and  yet  emotionally  so 
meaning  shapes ;  those  fantastic  ribs  and  bastions 
and  cornices  ?  It  came  with  a  jump — in  the  back- 
grounds of  Leonardo  da  Vinci.  They  wanted  for 
their  explanation  not  any  troubled  aspiration  of 
the  land  about  them,  but  such  a  face  as  we  had 
seen  yesterday  on  the  walls  of  the  Salon  Carre.  I 
am  not  surprised  that  a  miracle  happened  at 
Lourdes. 

At  Bayonne  we  had  a  flash  of  very  blue  sea, 


IRUN  17 

white  foam,  swaying  masts,  and  long  warehouses 
filled  with  barrels  of  wine.  There  were  tall 
English  girls  with  tennis  racquets,  bound  for 
Biarritz,  on  the  gravelled  platform  of  the  station. 
We  were  now  in  the  Leonardo  background, 
awakening  the  echoes  of  the  mountains  as  we 
crashed  through  tunnels.  We  crawled  through  a 
limestone  cutting,  clothed  with  a  dwarf  and  thorny 
acacia,  where  a  gang  of  men  repairing  the  line 
cheered  us,  kissing  their  hands.  We  emerged 
upon  a  bridge,  and  on  the  white  road  below  us 
there  was  an  ox- cart,  the  oxen,  yoked  together 
with  a  heavy  bar  covered  with  sheepskin,  with  a 
crimson  fringe  over  their  eyes,  swaying  gently  from 
side  to  side  as  they  moved  forward  at  the  slowest 
walking-pace  of  any  living  beast.  At  Hendaye, 
the  last  station  in  France,  armed  officials  on  the 
platform  gazed  up  regretfully  at  the  train  as 
though  greedy  for  contraband,  and  thereafter  we 
went  slowly,  as  if  taking  pains  not  to  disturb  a 
political  boundary.  Then  we  crossed  the  Bidassoa 
and  were  at  Irun,  in  Spain. 


CHAPTER  II 

CHANGING    MONEY  -  SAN     SEBASTIAN  -  THE     BARBER 
THE    CHURCHES    OF    SANTA    MARIA    AND    SAN    VICENTE 


French  engineering  friend  took  leave  of 
us  here  with  many  polite  remarks  about  the 
pleasure  of  our  company.  As  we  descended  from 
the  train  we  saw  the  first  mantilla  and  with  diffi- 
culty refrained  from  staring  at  the  captivating 
grace  of  it.  It  seemed  hard  to  believe  that  the 
gravely-unconscious  wearer  had  not  assumed  it 
merely  to  be  looked  at.  We  gave  up  the  last 
coupons  of  our  Cook's  tickets  with  the  feeling  that 
we  were  venturing  into  the  unknown.  Our  ruck- 
sacks were  carefully  examined  by  a  polite  official 
in  grey-blue  linen  uniform,  armed  with  a  revolver, 
and  the  sight  of  his  weapon  made  me  feel  already 
how  foolish  we  had  been  in  bringing  ours.  Eng- 
lish firearms  are  contraband  in  Spain,  and  until 
I  got  rid  of  mine  I  was  always  bothered  with 
a  separate  consciousness  in  my  right-hand  coat 
pocket  whenever  I  saw  a  Customs  official. 

It  was  rather  an  anxious  moment  when  I  said 
my  first  Spanish  sentence  to  a  Spaniard  in  asking 
for  two  tickets  to  San  Sebastian.  As  James  re- 
marked condescendingly,  "it  seemed  to  work  all 


CHANGING   MONEY  19 

right."  When  we  went  to  change  money  we 
received  twenty-five  pesetas  for  a  sovereign,  the 
value  of  the  pound  "  at  par."  With  a  feeling  of 
helpless  indignation  we  knew  we  were  being 
cheated,  but  as  we  had  forgotten  to  make  sure 
of  the  current  rate  of  exchange,  it  was  useless  to 
protest.  The  handsome  official,  whose  olive  skin 
lent  an  exotic  richness  to  his  uniform  of  dark  blue 
cloth  and  gold  lace,  handed  me  my  change  with 
a  smiling,  insolent  civility  which  showed  that  he 
knew  that  I  knew  he  ought  to  have  given  me 
more.  It  is  worth  remarking  here  that  the  current 
rate  of  exchange  may  be  found  day  by  day  in  the 
financial  columns  of  the  newspapers,  but  we  did 
not  know  this  at  the  time.  Though  the  Spanish 
official  is  generally  ready  to  take  advantage  of 
ignorance,  he  seldom  tries  to  dispute  a  definite 
demand.  He  is  not  more  dishonest  than  we  are, 
but  he  is  more  logical,  since  the  whole  system  of 
commerce  depends  on  one  party  to  a  bargain  not 
knowing  or  being  unable  to  stand  out  for  the  pre- 
cise value  of  the  goods  exchanged.  I  suppose  it 
is  the  Englishman's  superstitious  regard  for  the 
mere  substance  of  gold  which  makes  the  man  who 
would  get  the  better  of  you  over  a  horse  or  a 
pound  of  butter  or  a  mining  share,  jib  at  giving 
you  wrong  change  of  a  sovereign.  Indeed,  with 
Latin  logic,  the  Spaniard  might  retort  that  he  is 
even  more  meticulously  honest  than  the  English- 
Jinan  since,  theoretically,  £l  =  25  p.  As  we  climbed 
up  into  the  Spanish  train  we  were  struck  by  the 


20  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

unfinished  look  of  the  carriage  though  it  was  new, 
clean,  and  airy.  Even  the  ends  of  the  screws  which 
fixed  the  alarm  notice  in  the  next  compartment 
projected  through  the  wood,  to  the  danger  of 
passengers'  heads.  This  minor  detail  is,  I  think, 
characteristic  of  the  Spaniard  at  work.  He  is 
intelligent  and  he  is  not  wanting  in  energy,  but 
he  leaves  off  a  moment  too  soon.  We  wandered 
up  and  down  the  corridor  looking  for  a  smoking 
compartment.  There  didn't  seem  to  be  one,  and 
then  James  exclaimed  : 

"  What  fools  we  are  ;  in  Spain,  of  course,  one 
smokes  everywhere  except  where  one  is  told  not 
to — and  even  then " 

I  believe  that  James  did  not  really  enjoy  his 
tobacco  in  Spain  until,  in  a  Madrid  tramcar,  I 
pointed  him  out  the  notice : 

"  Se  prohibe  fumar" 

For  the  next  few  miles  we  had  tantalising 
glimpses  of  the  Bay  of  Biscay.  Then  we  passed 
the  land-locked  harbour  of  Pasajes,  very  like  a 
Cornish  port  but  for  the  height  of  the  surround- 
ing hills,  which  was  at  one  time  the  headquarters 
of  the  Basque  whale-fishery.  We  reached  San 
Sebastian  at  about  nine  o'clock. 

When  I  had  passed  through  the  barrier  I  found  | 
that  James  was  missing.  Presently  he  came  up| 
with  a  look  of  quiet  satisfaction  on  his  face.  I 
asked  him  what  was  the  matter,  and  he  said  com-| 
posedly : 

"  Oh,  it's  all  right.      I  only  wanted  to  see  iij 


SAN    SEBASTIAN  21 

I  could  get  through  without  giving  up  my 
ticket." 

"  And  did  you  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Of  course,"  he  said. 

After  submitting  to  another  examination  by 
the  Customs  people — for  every  town,  at  least  in 
the  north  of  Spain,  has  its  separate  consumos  tax 
— we  crossed  the  bleak  hall  and  emerged  from 
the  station  to  be  assaulted  by  a  clamorous  crowd 
of  blue-bloused  men,  several  of  whom  wore  in 
their  boinas  brass  labels  bearing  the  word  Mozo 
(porter).  Here  we  felt  the  advantage  of  ruck- 
sacks as  a  means  of  transporting  luggage  ;  when 
one  is  tired,  hot,  and  hungry,  it  is  so  easy  weakly 
to  give  up  a  handbag  to  a  man  one  may  or  may 
not  see  again,  and  who,  in  any  case,  is  probably 
an  extortioner. 

Our  first  impression  of  San  Sebastian  was  of 
wide,  untidy  spaces  and  unfinished  buildings  under 
a  blazing  sun.  On  every  side  were  large  houses 
in  different  stages,  whether  of  construction  or  de- 
struction it  was  difficult  to  say  at  a  first  glance. 
We  decided  to  get  a  meal  at  once.  We  crossed 
a  rather  florid  bridge,  and  choosing  one  of  several 
streets  running  parallel,  entered  a  restaurant  called 
the  Maison  Doree.  The  large,  bare,  but  clean 
room  with  blinds  drawn  against  the  brilliant  sun 
was  attended  by  a  single  French  waiter  who  said 
that  we  could  have  almuerzo  or  lunch  in  a  few 
minutes.  While  we  waited,  he  initiated  a  game 
amusing  to  us  and  profitable  to  himself  by  rolling 


22  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

copper  coins  along  the  floor  for  a  fox-terrier  to 
pick  up.  The  fox-terrier,  by  the  way,  or  f ox- 
terrier  o,  to  give  him  his  proper  title,  is  quite  the 
"  knowing"  thing  for  the  perfect  "  blade  "  in  Spain. 
The  meal  when  it  came  was  excellent.  We  had 
flimsy  slices  of  a  peculiarly  hard  sausage,  an  ome- 
lette, some  grilled  meat,  hake  cooked  in  oil,  the 
tenderest  chicken  in  the  world  with  salad,  cheese, 
apricots,  and  pears,  washed  down  with  a  good  red 
wine.  Then  there  were  olives  as  big  as  plums. 
Hake — or  merluza — we  afterwards  found  was  to 
be  our  companion  at  many  meals.  This,  as  James 
remarked,  was  "  very  friendly  of  them,"  the  hake 
being  eminently  a  Cornish  institution  and  con- 
nected with  many  local  stories.  Indeed,  I  am 
properly  a  "  hake "  from  the  town  wherein  I 
dwell. 

Being  full  of  meat  and  wine,  James  was  tempted 
by  some  devil  of  refinement  to  get  shaved  before 
we  spent  the  hour  or  so  at  our  disposal  in  seeing 
what  we  might  of  San  Sebastian.  We  found  a 
barber's  by  the  sign  of  a  brass  lather-bowl  with  a 
semi-circular  bite  in  the  edge  for  fitting  round  the 
throat.  By  virtue  of  his  winning  manner  James 
fell  to  the  proprietor,  while  I  was  taken  in  hand 
by  a  good-looking  youth  with  the  arched  brow, 
melting  dark  eyes,  aquiline  nose,  and  long  and 
slightly  retreating  chin,  giving  the  look  of  snoring, 
which  we  were  to  see  repeated  again  and  again  in 
our  travels.  I  was  at  my  most  helpless  when 
James  called  from  behind  me  in  a  muffled  voice  : 


SAN   SEBASTIAN  23 

"  What's  the  Spanish  for  '  Please,  brush  my 
hair'?" 

I  did  not  know  and  my  position  was  not 
suitable  for  trying  to  find  out.  I  heard  James 
making  strange  explanatory  noises,  and  then  he 
cried : 

"  Oh,  I  say !  the  beggar's  going  to  shampoo 
me!" 

Lather  and  laughter  prevented  my  interference. 
When  the  one  had  been  wiped  away  and  the  other 
subsided  I  was  moved  by  curiosity  to  ask  by  signs 
how  one  said,  "  Please,  brush  my  hair."  The 
youth  nodded  intelligently,  and  the  next  moment 
he  had  seized  my  head  and  begun  the  first  stage  of 
shampooing.  I  submitted  as  if  that  was  what  I 
meant. 

Owing  to  James's  unworthy  concern  for  his 
appearance,  it  was  now  nearly  time  to  take  the 
train  to  Bilbao.  We  skimmed  with  our  eyes  the 
view  from  the  Paseo  de  la  Zurriola,  the  flowery 
quay  where  stands  the  monument  to  the  Basque 
admiral  Antonio  de  Oquendo,  and,  picking  up  our 
ruck-sacks  at  the  Maison  Dore'e,  returned  to  the 
station.  The  ticket  office  seemed  rather  late  in 
opening,  and  there  was  no  sign  of  a  train.  I  took 
my  place  in  the  queue,  and  when  my  turn  came 
asked  for  two  tickets  to  Bilbao. 

"  Otra  estation"  said  the  man  laconically. 

Until  that  moment  we  hadn't  known  that  there 
was  another  station  in  San  Sebastian,  and  it  was 
now  ten  minutes  to  the  departure  of  our  train.  A 


24  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

dozen  hands  pointed  wildly  into  space.  We  rushed 
from  the  door  and  picked  up  a  small  boy  to  guide 
us.  As  he  trotted  along  at  our  side  he  kept 
repeating  anxiously : 

"  You  will  reward  me  well  ?  You  will  reward 
me  well  ? " 

We  reached  the  station  to  find  that  the  train 
had  just  gone,  and  that  there  was  not  another  till 
three-thirty. 

In  spite  of  our  language,  we  felt  a  sneaking 
gladness  that  we  were  to  see  something  of  San 
Sebastian  after  all.  Our  small  guide  received  a 
peseta  with  a  yell  of  joy,  and  we  gave  up  our  ruck- 
sacks to  a  tall  Basque  who  said  "  Muy  bien  "  and 
flung  them  nonchalantly  under  the  counter  of  the 
consigne  without  offering  to  give  us  a  receipt  of 
any  kind.  He  was  a  strongly-built,  weather- 
beaten,  clean-shaved  man,  with  the  high  cheek- 
bones and  boldly  curved  nose  and  jaw  character- 
istic of  his  nation.  His  face  and  his  clothes — blue 
bonnet,  blue  linen  blouse,  and  corduroy  trousers- 
made  him  look  oddly  rural  for  his  office. 

San  Sebastian  is  built  upon  a  sandy  peninsula 
which  connects  Monte  Urgull  with  the  mainland  ; 
the  town  and  the  rock,  once  an  island,  enclosing 
the  little  bay  of  La  Concha  as  with  a  protecting 
right  arm.  The  mouth  of  the  river  Urumea  washes 
the  outside  of  the  elbow.  Monte  Urgull  might  be 
the  closed  fist  warning  off  intruders.  It  was  once 
taken  from  the  French  and  once  defended  against 
the  Carlists  by  allied  Spanish  and  British  troops, 


SAN    SEBASTIAN  25 

and  the  unmilitary  spectator  wonders  a  little  help- 
lessly "  why  ? "     One  thinks  of  that 

"  Brave  old  Duke  of  York  who  had  ten  thousand  men, 
And  marched  them  up  the  hill  one  day,  and  marched  them 
down  again." 

We  found  our  way  back  to  the  town  over 
rubbish-heaps  where  new  houses  were  a-building, 
and  across  waste  places  where  women  were  dress- 
ing wool  or  filling  mattresses.  We  passed  the 
imposing  new  church  of  the  Buen  Pastor  and 
came  into  the  Avenida  de  la  Libertad,  the  central 
thoroughfare  of  the  town,  running  across  the  middle 
of  the  peninsula  from  the  bridge  of  Santa  Catalina 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Urumea  to  the  bathing-beach 
of  La  Concha.  x  Open  tramcars  with  white  curtains 
crossed  either  end  of  the  avenue,  which  is  lined 
with  plane  trees.  We  were  struck  by  the  number 
and  size  of  the  windows,  or  rather  glazed  balconies, 
of  the  tall  houses.  At  a  first  glance  the  whole 
front  of  a  Spanish  town-house  seems  to  be  made 
of  glass  in  a  series  of  rectangular  oriels  connected 
vertically.  The  idea  seems  to  be  to  give  the 
occupants  of  the  room  the  effect  of  outdoors,  the 
greatest  amount  of  light  with  the  least  exposure 
to  weather,  and  this  at  once  betrays  the  chief 
defect  in  the  climate  of  Spain,  the  prevalence  of 
bitter  winds.  The  avenue  was  thronged  with 
people,  the  dominant  colours  of  their  dresses  being 
butcher-blue  and  black  with  here  and  there  a  note 
of  orange  or  cardinal,  a  woman's  kerchief,  or  the 


26  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

uniform  of  a  soldier.  At  intervals,  too,  the  stream 
of  sober  colour  was  punctuated  by  the  hot  scarlet 
of  the  curious  cylinders,  resembling  "  fire-queens," 
fitted  with  roulette  wheels  and  carried  on  the  backs 
of  little  boys  as  gambling  machines  for  iced  water 
or  sweet  wafers.  A  few  of  the  women  wore  the 
mantilla  or  the  even  more  graceful  velo,  a  black  shawl 
of  a  material  resembling  nun's-veiling,  covering  the 
head  and  draping  the  figure  to  the  hips.  But  here, 
as  throughout  the  Basque  provinces,  most  women 
of  the  peasant  class  cover  the  backs  of  their  heads 
with  brightly-coloured  kerchiefs  having  three  cor- 
ners knotted  into  "  ears  "  and  the  fourth  tucked  in 
at  the  nape.  The  effect  on  some  of  the  lean, 
brown,  bright-eyed  older  women,  with  one  "  ear  " 
standing  up  and  another  lopping  down,  is  comi- 
cally rakish,  reminding  one  of  the  March  hare. 
The  people  were  talking  animatedly,  and  yet  there 
was  wanting  some  familiar  under- current  of  sound. 
Presently  I  recognised  the  reason  to  be  that  they 
nearly  all,  men  and  women  alike,  wore  canvas 
shoes,  generally  white  but  sometimes  red  or  yellow, 
with  hempen  soles,  called  alpargatas. 

We  followed  the  avenue  and  came  out  under 
tamarisk  trees  upon  the  Paseo  de  la  Concha,  over- 
looking the  bay.  San  Sebastian  under  a  brilliant 
sun  was  a  little  too  sparkling  and  alert,  the  con- 
trast between  reddish  rock  and  very  blue  sea  a 
little  too  frank  for  beauty.  One  was  reminded  of 
Dawlish.  If  Napoleon  had  conquered  England 
and  held  it,  I  fancy  that  Dawlish  to-day  would  be 


SAN   SEBASTIAN  27 

looking  very  much  like  San  Sebastian.  Away  to 
the  left  we  could  just  see  the  royal  palace  of 
Miramar,  designed  by  an  English  architect,  front- 
ing the  little  island  of  Santa  Clara,  and  beyond, 
the  headland  of  Monte  Igueldo  which  forms  the 
western  arm  of  the  bay.  To  the  right,  between 
the  glittering  Casino  and  the  dark  mass  of  Monte 
Urgull,  the  little  harbour  and  all  that  remains  of 
the  old  town  looked  cool  and  grey  and  inviting  by 
contrast  with  the  general  hard  brightness.  We 
turned  in  that  direction  through  narrow  streets 
and  along  slippery  quays  where  here  and  there  a 
watchful  carabinero  leaned  on  his  Mauser.  I  don't 
know  if  smuggling  between  France  and  Spain  is 
still  carried  on  as  described  in  Pierre  Loti's  Ra- 
muntcho,\Xlt  certainly  the  old  town  of  San  Sebastian, 
with  its  convenient  water-doors  and  sly  entries, 
looks  as  if  it  had  private  reasons  for  being  content 
with  neglect  and  obscurity. 

With  a  foresight  unusual  in  him,  James  re- 
membered that  he  had  some  acquaintance  with  a 
local  shipowner  who  might  be  able  to  arrange  our 
passage  home  when  we  required  it.  We  found 
the  office  on  the  quayside,  but  James's  friend 
was  away  at  Pasajes.  The  clerk  in  charge  invited 
us  to  use  the  telephone,  but  we  failed  to  reach 
the  right  person.  While  waiting  in  the  office, 
with  its  railed- in  desk  and  maps  and  coloured 
pictures  of  steamers,  I  reflected  on  the  queer 
insularity  which  gave  me  a  new  little  shock  of 
surprise  every  time  I  saw  a  Spaniard  using  the 


28  A    SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

appliances  of  modern  civilisation.  "  Quien  llama  ?  " 
("  Who  calls  ? "),  by  the  way,  is  an  improvement  on 
"  Hallo ! " 

We  entered  the  church  of  Santa  Maria,  an 
eighteenth-century  building  in  the  "  baroque  "  style 
of  architecture,  and  were  immediately  impressed 
by  what  we  afterwards  found  to  be  the  two  most 
striking  characteristics  of  the  churches  of  Spain ; 
darkness,  and  the  importance  of  the  retablo,  or 
reredos.  As  a  general  rule  in  Spanish  churches 
the  light,  as  the  decorative  passion  of  the  builder, 
is  concentrated  upon  the  altar  and  its  immediate 
surroundings.  The  retablo  of  Santa  Maria,  like  the 
rest  of  the  building,  is  florid  and  impressive  but 
not  beautiful.  As  we  stood  there,  a  black-robed 
sacristan  shuffled  out  of  the  darkest  corner  of  the 
church  and  began  to  describe  the  various  altars, 
naming  the  saints  upon  them.  He  said  that  this 
was  the  church  that  the  King  of  Spain  attended 
when  he  was  in  San  Sebastian,  and  he  showed  us 
the  spot  where  he  knelt. 

We  followed  the  narrow  Calle  del  Treintaiuno 
de  Agosto — the  date  of  the  capture  of  the  town 
from  the  French  in  1813 — with  its  broad  eaves 
supported  by  richly  carved  corbels.  Here  and 
there  the  velvety  shadows  were  warmed  by  a  figure 
leaning  over  a  wooden  balcony,  a  splash  of  carna- 
tions, or  clothes  drying.  At  the  far  end  of  the 
street  we  caught  sight  of  the  tall,  windowless, 
buttressed  walls  of  San  Vicente.  It  looked  like 
the  stern  of  a  ship.  San  Vicente  seems  to  have 


SAN   VICENTE  29 

turned  its  back  on  the  Casino  and  the  new  town, 
which  Santa  Maria  tolerates,  and  to  wait  for  a 
return  of  simplicity.  It  is  not  patronised  by 
royalty. 

San  Sebastian  is  the  fashionable  watering-place 
of  Spain,  and  it  looks  as  if,  by  some  caprice  of  the 
wealthy,  prosperity  had  taken  it  unawares,  and 
roused  it  into  an  almost  hysterical  frenzy  of  build- 
ing. The  contrast  between  the  old  town  and  the 
new  is  more  piquant  than  anything  we  have  in 
England,  and  helps  one  to  understand  French 
novels  in  which  very  "  smart "  people  of  the  monde 
and  the  demi-monde  are  brought  into  immediate  con- 
tact with  the  most  primitive  surroundings.  Quite 
conceivably,  with  another  turn  of  fashion  the  tide 
of  prosperity  will  recede  from  San  Sebastian,  the 
Casino  will  look  as  desolate  as  only  a  building  of 
that  character  can  look  when  fallen  out  of  use,  but 
San  Vicente  will  remain. 

From  the  Calle  de  Narrica  I  tried  to  photo- 
graph San  Vicente,  but  found  that  here  as  in  so 
many  places,  at  the  necessary  distance  the  tall, 
heavy-browed  houses  closed  in  upon  the  church  so 
that  only  the  shadowy,  vaulted  porch  was  visible. 
A  number  of  children  lined  up  in  front  of  the 
camera,  and  two  little  girls  followed  us  up  the 
street.  When  we  asked  them  where  was  the  Plaza 
de  Guipuzcoa  they  told  us  and  went  away,  as  if 
they  had  only  followed  us  to  be  of  service.  In  the 
Plaza  de  Guipuzcoa  the  magnolias  were  in  bloom. 
The  square  is  small,  but,  as  we  stood  on  the  little 


30  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

bridge  in  the  centre,  the  surrounding  houses,  in- 
cluding the  Palacio  de  la  Diputacion,  or  local 
Chamber  of  Deputies,  were  entirely  hidden  by 
trees. 

We  sat  outside  a  caf£  in  the  Alameda  or  boule- 
vard near  the  Casino,  where  a  fountain  played  under 
the  trees.  The  waiter  brought  us  wine ;  two  small 
glasses  of  thick,  brown  wine  with  the  tang  of 
leather,  and  two  large  glasses  of  water.  The  after- 
noon was  wearing,  and  the  more  fashionable  world 
of  San  Sebastian  was  beginning  to  stir.  Officers 
on  horseback  and  young  bloods,  with  linen  suits 
and  panama  hats,  in  carriages  passed  us  in  the 
direction  of  the  Concha.  Little  boys  with  trays  of 
sweets  dodged  in  and  out  between  the  carriages  or 
followed  the  tramcars,  and  every  now  and  then  a 
weedy  policeman,  wearing  a  shako  and  armed  with 
a  black  stick,  with  a  manner,  as  James  remarked, 
of  "  looking  for  his  wages,"  would  rouse  himself 
and  drive  them  away. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  MOTHER  OF  ALL  THE  SOLDIERS  -  BASQUE  VILLAGES 
-  LOST  IN  BILBAO  -  THE  SAILORS*  INSTITUTE 


rnHE  station  for  Bilbao  was  filled  with  a  large, 
excitedly  talking,  but  orderly  crowd,  standing 
in  queue  before  the  booking-office.  Lounging  on 
the  rail  beside  the  pigeon-hole,  a  uniformed  official 
with  a  revolver  in  an  unbuttoned  holster  scrutinised 
each  person  as  he  took  his  ticket.  Most  of  the 
people  seemed  to  be  of  the  peasant  or  labouring 
classes,  but  there  were  a  few  of  a  more  sophisti- 
cated appearance,  reminding  one  of  seaside  "  week- 
enders "  at  home  ;  portly  papas  and  mammas,  girls 
in  white  dresses  and  fashionable  hats,  and  young 
men  in  tweed  suits.  Some  of  them  carried  flimsy 
valises  of  green  canvas  with  bright  brown  leather 
straps.  The  man  in  charge  of  the  consigne  gave 
us  our  ruck-sacks  on  demand  with  the  same  un- 
questioning informality  with  which  he  had  put 
them  away. 

Hitherto  in  order  to  save  time  we  had  travelled 
second-class,  but  for  the  future  we  intended  to  go 
third.  Our  reason  was  frankly  economy,  but  a 
single  experience  was  enough  to  convince  us  that 
we  should  have  missed  the  chief  interest  and 


31 


32  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

pleasure  of  our  holiday  if  we  had  travelled  by 
any  other  class.  Indeed  the  only  disadvantage  of 
travelling  in  Spain  by  the  "  correo  "  and  "  mixto  " 
trains — which  alone  carry  third-class  passengers — 
is  their  slow  rate  of  speed,  which  seldom  exceeds 
fifteen  miles  an  hour.  When  I  took  our  tickets  I 
received,  as  before,  change  at  the  rate  of  only 
twenty-five  pesetas  to  the  pound. 

We  took  our  places  in  the  least  crowded  car- 
riage, which  was  divided  into  only  nominal  com- 
partments with  bare  seats.  Spanish  trains  have 
one  welcome  advantage  over  English  in  that  not 
only  the  windows  over  the  doors  but  those  at  the 
ends  of  the  seats  are  made  to  open.  Next  to  me 
sat  a  stout,  middle-aged  woman,  with  an  open 
weather-beaten  face,  wearing  a  print  gown  and  a 
coloured  kerchief  on  her  head.  She  carried  a  large, 
flat  basket,  containing  parcels  of  food  and  several 
bottles  of  wine,  which,  with  apologies  for  disturb- 
ing me,  she  pushed  under  the  seat.  There  was 
something  peculiarly  self-reliant  and  cheery  in  her 
manner  as  she  sat  upright,  hailing  this  person  and 
that  throughout  the  length  of  the  carriage. 

Presently  there  got  into  our  compartment  a 
handsome  young  soldier  of  about  nineteen  or  so, 
with  a  long  olive  face  and  a  little  black  moustache. 
He  wore  a  scarlet  boina  with  a  brass  badge,  a  long- 
skirted  blue  coat  and  scarlet  trousers.  He  carried 
a  rifle,  which  he  placed  carefully  in  the  rack,  and  a 
leather  post-bag  which  he  kept  on  his  knees.  We 
learned  afterwards  that  he  belonged  to  the  Basque 


THE   MOTHER   OF   THE   SOLDIERS     33 

military  police,  a  body  of  men  whose  duties,  helping 
in  the  Custom-House  service  and  supporting  the 
Civil  Guard,  are  apparently  not  very  clearly  defined. 
They  are  known  by  a  different  name  in  each  of  the 
three  Basque  provinces :  Miqueletes  in  Guipuzcoa, 
Minones  in  Alava,  and  Forales  in  Vizcaya.  The 
young  Miquelct  and  the  woman  at  my  side  were 
immediately  in  animated  conversation.  I  could 
understand  little  of  what  they  said,  but  apparently 
she  was  requiring  him  to  give  a  detailed  account  of 
his  recent  movements,  and  supplying  him  with  a 
good  deal  of  advice  for  the  future.  At  first  we 
thought  she  must  be  his  mother,  but  we  afterwards 
found  that  she  was  on  the  same  friendly  admonitory 
terms  with  all  the  members  of  his  corps,  so  we 
christened  her  the  Mother  of  all  the  Soldiers. 

^The  train  seemed  to  take  a  great  deal  of  send- 
ing off.  Three  times  a  bell  rang  loudly,  but 
nothing  happened  except  that  people  talked  more 
and  more  excitedly.  Armed  officials  wandered  up 
and  down  the  platform,  occasionally  glancing  into 
the  carriages.  At  last,  punctually  to  the  minute, 
we  were  off,  and  for  the  first  half-hour  or  so  the 
experience  was  almost  terrifying.  The  narrow- 
gauge  line  passing  through  a  mountainous  country, 
we  crashed  through  cuttings  and  tunnels  with  a 
deafening  noise  which  made  the  train  seem  to  be 
travelling  at  a  reckless  speed,  particularly  when 
rounding  the  most  violent  curves  I  have  ever  seen 
on  any  railway.  Sometimes  the  train  seemed  to 
be  chasing  its  own  tail  and  very  nearly  catching  it. 
3 


34  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

The  gradients,  too,  were  sharp  ind  sudden,  and  the 
pitch  of  the  line  round  curves  was  so  extreme  that, 
the  coaches  being  swung  on  bogies,  the  houses  and 
churches  we  passed  seemed  to  be  leaning  away  at 
an  angle  of  twenty  degrees.  I  noticed  that  the 
coaches  on  this  maddest  little  railway  in  the  world 
were  made  by  the  Bristol  Wagon-works  Company. 
As  there  was  only  one  lamp  to  the  whole  carriage, 
and  that  hidden  from  where  we  sat,  the  effect  of 
broken  light  and  violent  shadow  on  the  harsh, 
animated  faces  and  restless  hands  was  most  impres- 
sive, and  enhanced  the  devil-may-care  character  of 
the  whole  business.  By  and  by  we  began  to  find 
it  wildly  exhilarating;  a  feeling  which  James  ex- 
pressed by  suddenly  sitting  up  in  his  corner  and 
saying,  a  propos  to  nothing : 

"  Hang  the  expense  ! " 

Before  long  we  began  to  recognise,  too,  that 
whatever  we  were  to  see  in  Spain,  we  were  now 
passing  through  some  of  the  most  fascinating 
country  we  had  ever  set  eyes  upon.  It  was  like 
a  glorified  Devonshire ;  a  country  of  deep,  wooded 
glens  and  wide,  fertile  valleys  redeemed  from  pretti- 
ness  by  the  bare  limestone  peaks  of  the  Cantabrian 
mountains.  A  broad,  winding  road,  that  seemed 
to  gain  rather  than  lose  in  beckoning  charm  from 
its  well-kept  condition — as  if  the  whole  scheme  of 
things  were  too  big  to  need  the  pathetic  appeal  of 
picturesque  decay — kept  more  or  less  close  com- 
pany with  the  line,  and  every  now  and  then  we 
came  upon  a  tumbling  stream  with  brown,  shadowy 


A   BASQUE   VILLAGE 


BASQUE    VILLAGES  35 

pools  that  looked  troutful.  Between  Orio  and 
Deva  we  had  glimpses  of  the  sea.  The  valley 
bottoms  were  bright  with  maize  and  corn  framed 
in  the  woods  of  oak  and  chestnut,  knee-deep  in 
bracken,  which  clothed  the  lower  slopes  of  the 
mountains.  We  saw  many  familiar  flowers,  heath 
and  scabious  and  rest-harrow,  but  larger  and  fuller 
in  their  tints  than  those  at  home,  as  if  their  natures 
had  expanded  under  happier  conditions. 

Every  few  miles  we  drew  up  at  a  village  of 
crumbling,  brownish-yellow  stone  and  soft  red 
tiles,  clustered  round  a  church  which  was  generally 
set  upon  a  little  hill.  The  churches  were  all  of  the 
same  type — a  type,  I  believe,  peculiar  to  this  corner 
of  Europe — apse-ended,  with  high,  buttressed  walls, 
pierced  at  rare  intervals  with  very  small  windows, 
and  graceful  towers,  in  which  bells  of  blue-green, 
tarnished  metal  were  hung  visibly,  crowned  with  a 
lantern.  In  most  cases  a  penthouse  roof,  or  portico, 
of  red  tiles,  supported  by  pillars,  ran  round  the  out- 
side of  the  church  at  a  height  of  twenty  feet  or  so 
from  the  ground,  giving  the  effect  of  open  aisles 
and  suggesting,  with  truth,  that  the  church  was 
the  centre  of  not  only  the  spiritual  but  the  social 
life  of  the  village.  Sometimes  at  a  little  distance 
from  the  village  there  would  be  a  small  cemetery, 
a  rectangular  enclosure  on  a  gentle  hill,  with  roofed 
walls  for  meditation,  planted  with  cypress  trees. 

At  every  station  it  seemed  as  if  the  whole 
village  had  turned  out  to  greet  the  train.  Every- 
body seemed  to  know  everybody  else,  particularly, 


36  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

to  use  an  Irishism,  the  mother  of  all  the  soldiers  at 
my  side.  At  several  places  two  or  three  of  her 
sons  were  waiting  on  the  platform;  they  came 
forward  eagerly  to  shake  hands  with  her,  and  to 
receive  a  parcel  of  food  or  a  bottle  of  wine,  or  to 
hand  a  letter  to  their  young  comrade  who  sat 
nursing  his  post-bag  with  a  grave  air  of  responsi- 
bility. Nearly  all  the  men  we  saw  were  clean- 
shaven, with  strong  jaws,  bold  features,  and  bony 
brows.  They  all  wore  boinas  and  embroidered 
linen  shirts  with  collars,  but  no  neckties,  and 
sometimes  a  broad  sash  round  the  waist.  Some 
of  the  younger  women  were  handsome,  and,  again, 
amongst  the  very  old  we  saw  some  extraordinarily 
interesting  faces,  brown  and  deeply  lined,  with 
piercing  dark  eyes,  like  the  pictures  of  old  Indian 
squaws.  All  the  women,  young  or  old,  moved 
with  a  large  freedom,  and  most  of  them  had  thick 
hair,  very  neatly  arranged,  more  frequently  brown 
than  we  had  expected  to  see,  and  occasionally  red. 
All  the  people  seemed  happy,  and  there  were  no 
evidences  among  them  of  extreme  poverty.  What 
impressed  us  most  of  all  was  the  general  air  of 
brotherhood  ;  I  have  never  been  among  people  who 
seemed  so  bound  together  by  the  sense  of  common 
humanity.  And  whenever  the  train  started  the 
woman  at  my  side  called  out  "Adios  !"  in  a  clear 
ringing  tone  that  seemed  full  of  hope  and  courage ; 
it  was  "  God's  in  His  heaven — All 's  right  with  the 
world ! "  in  a  single  word,  a  word  that  seemed  to 
contain  all  the  special  meaning  which  has  evapor- 


BASQUE   VILLAGES  37 

ated  from  our  "  Good-bye."  Isn't  there,  perhaps, 
more  than  a  verbal  difference  in  the  fact  that 
whereas  we,  a  little  doubtfully  and  evasively,  hope 
that  God  may  be  with  our  friend,  the  Latin  con- 
fidently commends  his  friend  to  God  ? 

The  bond  of  brotherhood  among  the  people  at 
the  stations,  and  between  them  and  the  people  in 
the  train,  was  extended  in  the  most  natural  way  to 
us  two  strangers.  We  were  not  embarrassed  by 
curiosity  or  officiously  welcomed,  but  in  a  dozen 
little  tactful  ways  made  to  feel  that  we  were 
among  friends.  If  we  tried  to  ask  a  question  in 
their  language  everybody  within  reach  listened 
eagerly,  and  from  one  or  another  came  a  word  or 
a  sign,  a  suggestion  to  help  out  our  meaning.  I 
thought  with  shame  of  the  revolver  in  my  coat 
pocket ;  it  was  as  if  one  had  gone  armed  into  the 
presence  of  a  courteous  host.  At  a  place  called 
Mendaro  I  took  a  photograph  of  a  little  chapel 
perched  on  the  side  of  the  mountain.  A  man  in  the 
next  compartment,  who  might  have  been  anything 
from  a  farm  labourer  to  a  small  tradesman,  leaned 
over  the  partition  and  told  me  that  it  was  the  Her- 
mitage of  St.  Ana.  On  my  trying  to  continue  the 
conversation  he  said  quietly,  "  Pdrlez  vous  Fran- 
pais  ? "  He  listened  patiently  to  my  stumbling 
efforts  in  that  language  without  any  of  the  amuse- 
ment that  the  average  Englishman  of  his  class 
would  have  shown  in  similar  circumstances. 

I  was  struck  by  the  intelligent  interest  that  he 
and  others  took  in  my  camera.  It  was  evidently 


38  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

a  new  experience  to  them,  but  they  seemed  to  have 
an  immediate  grasp  of  principles.  Another  thing 
that  impressed  me  was  their  quickness  at  map- 
reading  ;  it  is  very  rarely  that  one  meets  an  Eng- 
lish peasant  who  can  find  his  way  about  a  map.  I 
spoke  just  now  of  a  man's  apparent  "  class,"  but, 
indeed,  it  was  the  most  difficult  thing  in  the  world 
in  his  and  other  cases  to  guess  what  they  "  did." 
This  was  partly  due,  no  doubt,  to  their  all  being 
dressed  alike,  but  more  to  their  simple  brother- 
liness  and  humanity.  They  were  fellow- creatures 
first,  and  this,  that,  and  the  other  only  by  accident. 
As  if  inspirited  by  the  full-mouthed  "  Adios  /" 
of  the  gallant  mother  of  all  the  soldiers,  the  little 
train  racketed  along,  swinging  round  a  curve, 
panting  up  a  slope,  and  then  gliding  with  a  squeal 
of  brakes  down  the  decline.  Looking  out  of  the 
window  one  would  see  the  engine  plunge  into  the 
hillside  from  the  middle  of  a  maizefield  like  a 
bolting  rabbit.  One  felt  that  the  driver  was  a  man 
with  a  temperament  and  gave  it  full  play.  At 
intervals,  while  the  train  was  at  full  speed,  the  face 
of  the  guard  would  appear  at  the  window  with  a 
friendly  "  Buenas  tardes"  So  far  the  villages  we 
had  seen  were  entirely  agricultural,  but  presently 
we*  came  to  a  place  where  there  was  a  manufactory 
of  small-arms — the  first  hint  that  we  were  ap- 
proaching the  ironfields  of  Bilbao.  The  long 
window  of  the  factory  overlooked  the  line,  and 
men  and  boys  working  before  it  in  their  shirt 
sleeves  kissed  their  hands  to  girls  in  the  train. 


BASQUE   VILLAGES  39 

Just  outside  the  station  the  embankment  was 
being  widened.  A  cart,  with  solid  wooden  wheels, 
drawn  by  a  yoke  of  oxen,  was  perched  on  the 
summit  of  a  mound  of  earth.  It  was  beautiful  to 
watch  the  patience  with  which  the  oxen,  guided 
by  a  man  with  a  goad,  very  slowly  turned  in  their 
own  lengths  in  a  position  where  a  false  step  would 
have  sent  them  rolling,  cart  and  all,  into  the  road 
below. 

From  a  narrow  wooded  valley  we  came  out 
upon  a  level  plain  of  cornland,  from  which  the 
mountains  retired  on  either  side,  allowing  their 
grandeur  to  be  more  clearly  seen.  A  thunder- 
storm which  had  been  brewing  all  the  afternoon 
was  closing  down  upon  them.  Heavy  clouds 
rolled  over  their  peaks,  making  strong  contrasts  of 
light  and  shade,  and  adding  to  their  impressive- 
ness.  From  here  we  followed  the  valley  of  the 
Durango,  which  flows  into  the  Nervion  or  Bilbao 
river.  The  land  on  either  side  was  extremely  well 
cultivated;  maize,  now  at  about  half  its  growth, 
was  the  principal  crop,  but  there  were  also  little 
vineyards — the  vines  being  trellised  about  four 
feet  from  the  ground — fruit  gardens,  and  fields  of 
corn,  beet,  potatoes,  and  tomatoes.  Soon  we  came 
in  sight  of  the  iron-mines ;  the  crude  evidences  of 
human  labour — tall  chimneys,  raw  soil,  and  red- 
dened water — looking  depressing  under  a  drizzling 
rain.  We  descended  through  a  long  tunnel  and 
were  at  Bilbao. 

For  some  reason  the  crowded  station  oppressed 


40  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

me ;  it  seemed  dark  and  unfriendly.  After  more 
than  two  days  and  two  nights  of  travelling,  fitful 
dozes,  chance  toilet,  and  snatched  meals — from 
sheer  excitement  we  had  forgotten  to  have  any 
food  since  our  morning  meal  at  San  Sebastian — we 
were  tired,  hungry,  and  dispirited.  When  we  had 
passed  the  Customs  we  were  assailed  by  a  crowd 
of  porters,  and  I  weakly  gave  up  my  heavy  ruck- 
sack to  the  first  man  that  asked  for  it.  James 
cried,  "  You  juggins  !  You'll  never  see  it  again  !  " 
and  I  brutally  wrenched  it  away  from  the  man  as 
he  was  leaving  the  door.  But  when  an  excited 
youth  pointed  to  the  Mozo  in  his  boina,  which 
I  mistakenly  supposed  to  be  an  official  badge,  I 
simply  couldn't  resist  the  opportunity,  and  gave 
him  the  bag.  I  argued  with  James  that  we  must 
have  a  guide  of  some  sort,  and  he  succumbed  to 
my  example. 

We  followed  our  guide  into  a  mean  street  with 
a  narrow  mule-tramway.  Our  first  business  was 
to  find  the  Englishman  to  whom  I  had  an  intro- 
duction, and  ask  him  to  direct  us  to  an  hotel.  I 
hadn't  his  exact  address,  but  never  doubted  that 
we  could  get  it  at  the  post-office,  and  told  the 
man  to  take  us  there.  But  I  soon  saw  that  I  had 
grossly  underestimated  the  size  of  Bilbao ;  it  was 
nearly  eight  o'clock,  and  dusk  was  falling  in  a 
drizzle  of  rain.  James,  who  had  only  approached 
Bilbao  from  the  sea  before,  did  not  know  where 
we  were,  and  he  presently  remarked  that  our  guide 
had  a  very  evil  face.  Looking  round  I  saw  that 


LOST    IN   BILBAO  41 

he  had  been  joined  by  a  companion  as  ugly-looking 
as  himself.  The  appearance  of  the  quarter  we 
were  in  did  not  encourage  us  to  risk  a  row  by 
taking  our  riick-sacks  away.  The  obviously 
English  cap  I  was  wearing — James  had  preserved 
a  boina  from  his  last  visit — marked  us  out  as 
strangers,  and  I  remembered  that  a  sailor  brother 
had  told  me  stories  about  nasty  things  happening 
to  strangers  in  Bilbao. 

We  followed  our  two  ruffians,  whose  manner 
was  that  of  men  excited  by  an  unexpectedly  easy 
opportunity,  beside  the  yellow  waters  of  the 
Nervion,  which  looked  cold  and  uninviting.  At 
the  door  of  a  low-looking  second-hand  clothes  shop 
a  flabby  man  with  broken  teeth  and  a  pear-shaped 
head  asked  us  if  we  wanted  lodgings.  Our  guide 
prepared  to  put  down  the  bags,  but  we  felt  that  a 
recommendation  from  this  quarter  was  not  to  be 
trusted,  and  urged  him  on  to  the  post-office.  We 
passed  through  the  crowded  market  and  over  a 
bridge  into  a  brilliantly  lighted  street  that  led  up- 
hill. The  sight  of  a  railway  station  suggested  a 
plan ;  we  would  get  rid  of  our  unattractive  com- 
panions, deposit  our  riick-sacks  in  the  despacho  de 
equipqjes  or  cloak-room,  and  find  our  way  to  the 
post-office  on  our  own  account.  We  entered  the 
hall,  and  were  immediately  accosted  by  a  police- 
man who,  on  learning  our  business,  told  us  that 
the  cloak-room  was  closed  for  the  night.  Our 
companions  had  the  advantage  of  language,  and  it 
was  evident  that  the  policeman  considered  us  their 


42  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

lawful  prey.  Further  argument  only  made  him 
suspicious,  and  we  had  been  warned  in  the  event  of 
a  difference  never  to  trust  the  ordinary  police,  who 
are  sometimes  in  the  pay  of  bad  characters,  but  to 
appeal  to  the  Civil  Guards.  There  was  no  Civil 
Guard  in  sight,  so  we  cut  short  the  discussion  and 
set  out  again  for  the  post-office.  We  left  the 
lighted  street  and  plunged  into  a  dark  byway. 
James,  who  was  beginning  to  have  confused  recol- 
lections of  the  place,  was  nearly  certain  that  we 
were  being  led  astray.  We  stopped  a  passer-by 
and  asked  him  the  way  to  the  post-office.  Ap- 
parently we  were  going  in  the  right  direction,  and 
presently  we  came  to  the  building,  and  entered  a 
large  room  that  looked  like  the  left  luggage  office 
of  a  railway  station.  But  the  man  in  charge,  who 
looked  like  a  railway  porter,  did  not  know  my 
friend's  address. 

We  then  ordered  our  guides  to  take  us  to  the 
British  Consulate.  After  some  hesitation,  and 
when  they  had  conferred  together  in  excited 
undertones,  they  agreed,  but  when  we  reached  the 
place  it  was  closed  for  the  night.  We  were  too 
distrustful  of  the  men  to  go  to  an  hotel  of  their 
choosing,  and  we  did  not  care  to  pick  one  at 
random  at  that  time  of  night,  and  without  recom- 
mendation. On  his  last  visit  to  Bilbao  James  had 
made  the  acquaintance  of  the  chaplain  of  the 
Sailors'  Institute,  and  he  now  proposed  that  we 
should  go  to  him  for  a  solution  of  our  difficulties. 
We  called  a  halt,  and  after  some  bargaining  got 


LOST   IN    BILBAO  43 

rid  of  our  companions.  I  was  not  relieved  at 
seeing  them  stealthily  following  us  on  the  other 
side  of  the  street  as  we  made  our  way  down  into 
the  centre  of  the  town. 

The  difficulty  was  to  find  the  Institute.  James 
had  a  vague  memory  that  it  was  somewhere  in  the 
direction  of  Portugalete,  a  little  way  out  of  the 
town,  and  that  one  reached  it  by  tramcar.  To 
both  of  us,  however,  Portugalete  was  only  a  name. 
We  crossed  a  large  open  space,  James  alternatively 
picking  up  and  losing  the  trail,  and  presently  came 
to  the  beginning  of  an  electric  tramway  under  an 
avenue  of  trees.  James  was  confident  that  it  was 
the  right  tramway,  but  the  conductor,  a  sinister- 
looking  man  with  a  heavy  chin  and  a  ginger 
moustache,  said  that  it  didn't  go  to  Portugalete, 
and  he  didn't  know  where  the  Institute  was.  Our 
attempts  to  describe  the  place  attracted  attention, 
and  the  tram  filled  up  with  rough-looking  fellows. 
I  had  taken  a  violent  dislike  to  the  conductor, 
which  James,  who  said  that  wherever  Portugalete 
might  be  this  was  the  right  tram  to  take  us  to  the 
Institute,  declared  to  be  ridiculous.  It  may  be 
that  I  received  my  first  impressions  of  the  man  in 
an  unfortunate  mood,  but  our  further  experiences 
of  him  only  served  to  deepen  my  suspicions;  he 
was  the  only  man  in  Spain  who  actually  robbed 
us,  and  he  was  the  occasion  of  the  only  drawn 
knife  we  saw  during  our  visit,  and  before  we  left 
Bilbao  James  had  come  to  share  my  opinion  that 
he  must  be  a  "  wrong  'un." 


44  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

The  tram  line  followed  the  course  of  the  river, 
and  seemed  to  penetrate  into  rougher  and  rougher 
quarters.  Presently  a  bearded  man  in  uniform,  the 
lettering  on  whose  cap  suggested  to  me  that  he 
might  be  able  to  give  me  my  friend's  address,  got 
into  the  tram.  I  spoke  to  him,  and  after  searching 
his  memory  he  wrote  the  address  of  my  friend's 
office  in  my  pocket-book.  At  that  hour  the  office 
must  have  been  closed,  but  the  street  and  the  num- 
ber were  at  least  something  definite  to  steer  by  in 
our  nightmare  wandering.  The  bearded  man  soon 
got  out  and  more  roughs  got  in.  As  two  of  them 
passed  the  conductor  he  tapped  his  pocket  signi- 
ficantly to  indicate,  I  thought,  that  we  were 
armed — for  the  butt  of  James's  revolver  was  plainly 
visible.  Such  was  the  complete  change  of  my 
mood  since  the  afternoon  that  I  only  regretted 
mine  was  unloaded.  I  am  a  peaceful  man,  though 
I  do  not  mind  a  row  when  a  row  is  intended ;  but 
the  prospect  of  a  row  being  precipitated  by  some 
hasty  and  stupid  misunderstanding  of  what  was 
going  on  about  us,  through  our  ignorance  of  the 
language,  was  anything  but  pleasant.  When  the 
conductor  came  to  take  the  fares  of  the  two  men 
sitting  beside  me  he,  I  thought,  reproached  them 
for  not  trying  to  draw  me  into  conversation.  It  is 
possible,  it  is  even  probable,  that  their  intentions 
were  nothing  but  friendly ;  that  my  acute  dis- 
comfort was  the  result  of  an  imagination,  incited 
by  sailors'  yarns  and  confused  by  unfamiliar  sur- 
roundings working  on  a  tired  brain  and  an  empty 


THE   SAILORS'   INSTITUTE          45 

stomach,  but  I  set  down  my  impressions  as  I 
received  them. 

The  rainy  night  over  the  river  outside  was 
presently  lit  up  by  a  lurid  glow  and  a  hideous 
panting  and  screaming  as  of  some  great  beast  in 
agony  added  to  its  terrors.  And  then  at  last  a 
young  man  got  in  who  to  my  relief  addressed 
me  in  English.  He  was  not  an  Englishman — a 
German,  I  think — but  he  spoke  enough  of  our 
tongue  with  an  abominable  Cockney  accent  to 
give  us  the  information  we  wanted.  Yes,  we  were 
right  for  the  Institute.  He  spoke  to  the  con- 
ductor, who,  I  am  quite  confident,  knew  where 
we  wanted  to  go,  and  in  a  few  minutes  the  car 
stopped. 

We  stepped  off  into  the  muddy  road  before 
the  lighted  doorway  of  a  brick  building  with  a 
balcony  and  a  flagstaff.  As  if  we  had  been  ex- 
pected, a  young  man  hailed  us  cheerfully  with : 

"  Come  inside." 

He  told  us  with  what  seemed  at  the  moment 
a  reckless  confidence  to  fling  our  ruck-sacks  down 
in  a  corner,  and  led  us  into  a  large  room  beset 
with  little  tables,  whereat  a  sprinkling  of  sailors 
were  playing  games  and  looking  at  papers.  At 
the  far  end  of  the  room,  her  head  haloed  against 
the  light,  an  English  girl  sat  at  a  piano  on  a 
platform. 

A  thin  man  in  clerical  dress  jumped  up  and 
greeted  James  with  a  cry  of  welcome.  He  was 
glad  to  see  us,  and,  of  course,  we  would  stop  the 


46  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

night  ?  There  were  no  ships'  officers  in  the  house 
at  the  moment,  and  consequently  there  was  a 
double-bedded  room  at  our  disposal.  I  don't 
know  what  incoherent  expression  of  relief  I  gave 
vent  to.  I  shook  hands  with  several  people,  feel- 
ing almost  sentimentally  glad — and  there  was 
poetic  justice  in  this  after  my  reflections  in  the 
train — to  see  my  fellow-countrymen.  The  chap- 
lain knew  the  gentleman  to  whom  I  had  an  intro- 
duction, and  told  us  that  he  was  ill,  so  that  in  any 
case  we  should  not  have  found  him  at  his  office. 
In  a  few  minutes  we  were  enjoying  the  best  wash 
we  had  had  for  three  days,  and  presently  sat  down 
to  a  comfortable  Anglo-Spanish  meal  with  an 
Englishwoman  behind  the  teapot. 

When  we  went  to  bed  I  suddenly  understood 
why,  in  spite  of  a  kindly  welcome,  and  the  comfort 
of  dry  clothes  and  food,  I  had  still  the  sense  of  a 
surrounding  hostility.  It  was  due  to  the  strange 
glow  and  the  stranger  noises  outside.  The  window 
of  our  room  looked  out  on  the  oily  dark  waters 
of  the  river,  and  on  the  other  side  there  was 
a  huge  iron  foundry.  A  gush  of  golden  sparks, 
made  fiercer  and  brighter  by  the  neighbourhood  of 
a  tall  black  chimney,  rose  higher  and  higher  into 
the  night,  raining  down  on  the  irregular  roofs  of 
workshops  and  the  tiny,  black,  moving  figures  of 
men.  The  growing  plume  of  fire  was  accompanied 
by  a  loud  panting  noise  which  seemed  rising  to 
some  crisis.  At  a  certain  moment  thick,  ruddy 
fumes,  pulsating  with  reflected  light,  were  suddenly 


THE   SAILORS'   INSTITUTE          47 

liberated,  the  golden  plume  dimmed  a  little,  and 
one  involuntarily  closed  one's  eyes  as  before  an 
explosion.  Then  there  was  a  harsh,  long-drawn, 
descending  scream,  like  the  death  agony  of  a 
monster,  and  a  river  of  white  fire  ran  horizontally 
into  still  pools  of  water.  The  light  went  out,  the 
panting  ebbed  like  failing  breath,  and  there  were  a 
few  moments  of  darkness  and  silence.  Then  the 
plume  and  the  panting  began  again,  and  so  they 
continued  throughout  the  night. 


CHAPTER  IV 

DOMESTICATED  LIGHTNING THE  BASQUE  PROVINCES 

BILBAO    MARKET A    PIECE    OF    ETIQUETTE THE    GAME  OF 

PELOTA BATHING     AT      LAS      ARENAS THE     "FIESTA      DE 

NAVARRA  " EFFECT    OF    MUSIC THE    SOCIEDAD    BILBAINA 

—AN  EVENING 

IN  the  morning  the  disturbing  pageant  of  the 
night  resolved  itself  into  a  grey  road  with 
tram  lines  and  a  few  shabby  plane-trees,  a  leaden 
river  with  steamers  at  anchor,  a  huddle  of  work- 
shops under  brown  smoke,  and  beyond  a  sullen 
range  of  hills.  It  was  like  looking  at  a  theatre 
stage  by  daylight. 

We  were  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Nervion, 
five  miles  below  Bilbao,  opposite  the  blasted  region 
well-named  El  Desierto  (The  Desert).  James's 
instinct  for  the  trail  had  been  better  than  his 
geography,  for  Portugalete  was  on  the  further 
shore  three  miles  nearer  the  sea.  If  we  had 
remained  in  the  tram  we  should  have  been  taken 
to  Las  Arenas  and  Algorta,  two  pleasant  bathing 
villages  at  the  mouth  of  the  river. 

The  Sailors'  Institute,  which  so  hospitably  en- 
tertained us,  was  built  by  Mr.  John  Cory,  of 
Cardiff,  for  the  benefit  of  English  sailors  engaged 
in  the  iron-ore  trade  between  Bilbao  and  the  ports 

48 


DOMESTICATED   LIGHTNING       49 

of  South  Wales.  It  is  in  charge  of  the  chaplain 
to  the  English  colony  in  Bilbao — whose  church 
is  at  Portugalete — assisted  by  a  reader,  a  lady 
manageress,  and  a  housekeeper.  The  Institute 
contains  a  fine  reading  and  recreation  room, 
where  services  are  also  held,  letters  received,  and 
light  refreshments  supplied,  and  billiard-rooms. 
Boarders  are  taken  at  reasonable  rates.  How 
admirably  the  place  fulfils  the  needs  of  sailors 
adrift  in  a  foreign  town  our  overnight's  experience 
enabled  us  to  judge. 

After  breakfast  we  took  the  tram  to  Bilbao. 
We  were  struck  by  the  light-hearted  way  in  which 
the  Spaniard  plays  with  electricity.  In  the  work- 
ing apparatus  of  the  line — as  we  afterwards  ob- 
served in  the  case  of  electric  lighting — there  was 
none  of  the  cast-iron  solemnity  one  associates  with 
the  subject  in  England.  The  trolley  wires  were 
slung  on  rough,  crooked  poles,  hardly  distinguish- 
able from  growing  trees,  instead  of  being  supported 
by  the  tall  and  rigid  standards  we  were  accustomed 
to  see.  Whatever  the  loss  in  stability  and  per- 
manence, the  gain,  or  rather  the  avoidance  of  in- 
jury to  the  landscape,  was  remarkable.  One  was 
reminded  of  Emerson's  words  about  the  function 
of  the  Poet : 

"  For  as  it  is  dislocation  and  detachment  from 
the  life  of  God  that  makes  things  ugly,  the  poet, 
who  re-attaches  things  to  nature  and  the  Whole — 
re-attaching  even  artificial  things,  and  violations  of 
nature,  to  nature,  by  a  deeper  insight — disposes 

4 


50  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

very  easily  of  the  most  disagreeable  facts.  Readers 
of  poetry  see  the  factory  village  and  the  railway, 
and  fancy  that  the  poetry  of  the  landscape  is 
broken  up  by  these  .  .  .  but  the  poet  sees  them 
fall  within  the  great  Order  not  less  than  the  bee- 
hive or  the  spider's  geometrical  web.  Nature 
adopts  them  very  fast  into  her  vital  circles,  and 
the  gliding  train  of  cars  she  loves  like  her  own." 

I  don't  know  if  the  Spaniard  is  more  poetical 
than  we  are,  but  he  certainly  seems  to  have 
domesticated  the  lightning  without  degrading  it 
or  the  landscape.  Perhaps — and  it  is  only  an- 
other way  of  saying  the  same  thing — he  is  more 
practical.  It  is  as  if  with  "  deeper  insight "  he 
saw  the  essential  fact  and  said,  "  All  you  want  is 
a  wire." 

In  some  places  the  poles  were  so  near  to  the 
line  as  to  be  a  source  of  danger  to  persons  getting 
on  and  off  the  trams.  Quite  in  the  gay,  practical 
spirit  of  the  whole  business  a  notice  at  the  end  of 
the  tram,  which  was  furnished  with  louvre  shutters 
to  keep  out  the  sun  and  let  in  the  air,  warned 
passengers  against  leaving  it  in  motion  because  it 
was  "  unhealthy "  to  do  so.  And  certainly  the 
tram  was  driven  with  a  dash  and  verve  which 
made  what  is  ordinarily  the  tamest  method  of 
travelling  a  voyage  of  adventure.  At  one  point 
the  driver  flung  himself  upon  the  brake  with  a 
volley  of  language;  for  a  moment  nothing  was 
visible  but  a  cloud  of  dust,  and  then  I  saw  that 
we  had  missed  a  motor  car  by  inches. 


THE   BASQUE   PROVINCES  51 

Most  of  the  passengers  were  of  the  now  familiar 
Basque  type:  the  men  clean  shaved  and  wearing 
boinas,  the  younger  women  bare-headed,  the  hair 
arranged  with  extraordinary  neatness,  the  elder 
with  kerchiefs  and  occasionally  mantillas.  A  boy 
of  about  ten  at  my  side  asked  me  for  a  light  for 
his  cigarette.  I  was  giving  him  a  match  when, 
arrested  by  his  look  of  surprise,  I  remembered  the 
native  ritual  of  the  occasion  and  carried  it  out 
though  clumsily.  You  present  your  own  cigar- 
ette to  the  asker,  who  takes  pains  not  to  touch 
with  his  fingers  the  end  which  goes  in  your 
mouth.  Having  obtained  a  light,  he  neatly 
reverses  the  cigarette  and  hands  it  back  to  you 
with  a  bow  and  a  "  Gradas"  This  boy  and  a 
companion  of  about  the  same  age  were  gazing 
reverently  at  the  pictures  of  professional  beauties 
in  a  cheap  journal.  A  red  and  black  butterfly 
fluttered  in  and  settled  on  the  paper.  The  boys 
examined  it  for  a  few  moments  with  murmurs  of 
admiration,  and  then  very  gently  gave  it  liberty. 
Looking  very  big  and  blond  and  pink  and  shiny 
by  contrast  with  the  other  passengers,  a  Scandi- 
navian skipper  in  a  light  suit,  with  brown  boots,  a 
bowler  hat,  and  a  portfolio  of  papers,  sat  stiffly  in 
a  corner  of  the  tram.  James  touched  my  arm  and 
pointed ;  I  looked  out  of  the  window  and  there, 
nosing  her  way  down  the  river,  was  the  little 
steamer  which  according  to  our  original  plan  ought 
to  have  brought  us  from  Cornwall  to  Bilbao. 

The  district,  which  by  night  in  the  rain  had 


52  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

looked  sinister,  by  morning  sunlight  was  merely 
untidy.  A  surprising  number  of  the  dilapidated 
buildings  are  wine-shops,  distinguished  by  a  with- 
ered bush  at  the  door.  The  belt  of  land  between 
this  long  suburb,  degenerating  seaward,  and  the 
chain  of  hills  enclosing  the  valley  is  laid  out  in 
market  gardens  cultivated  up  to  the  last  inch,  of 
vegetables  and  flowers — roses,  lilies,  hollyhocks, 
and  carnations. 

The  last  might  be  called  the  national  flower  of 
Spain ;  wherever  we  went  we  saw  girls  wearing 
carnations  coquettishly  in  their  hair,  or  still  more 
piquantly  in  their  mouths ;  and,  indeed,  the  flower, 
when  coloured  to  its  name,  with  its  blurred  outline 
and  spicy  odour,  seems  aptly  to  symbolise  the 
indolent  though  passionate  Spanish  beauty.  I 
believe  there  is  an  elaborate  code  of  meanings 
according  to  the  position  of  the  flower,  as  worn 
over  the  right  or  the  left  ear,  or  carried  between 
the  lips  or  in  the  hand,  but  it  is  not  a  language 
for  the  uninitiated. 

The  further  bank  of  the  river  is  lined  with 
wharves,  apparently  from  Bilbao  to  Portugalete. 
Behind  them  can  be  seen  the  curious  arrangement 
of  travelling  baskets  by  which  the  ore  is  brought 
down  from  the  mines  to  the  river  and  the  foundries. 
The  taint  of  that  metal  to  which  Bilbao  mainly 
owes  its  prosperity  is  over  the  whole  valley  in 
reddened  water  and  a  bronze  haze,  tempering  the 
brightest  sunlight,  perceptible  to  the  lips,  and 
at  evening  providing  atmospheric  effects  of  lurid 


THE    BASQUE   PROVINCES          53 

beauty  like  those  which  are  to  be  seen  over  the 
London  river. 

Nearing  Bilbao  the  trailing  suburb  improves 
into  a  residential  quarter  of  large  mansions  with 
well-kept  gardens,  where  we  saw  oleander  and 
magnolia  trees  in  bloom.  Here  also  are  several 
fine  public  buildings,  including  the  Jesuit  Uni- 
versity. 

We  found  my  friend's  office  in  the  busy,  tree- 
planted  Arenal  which  is  at  once  the  commercial 
centre  and  the  pleasure  ground  of  Bilbao.  Mr. 
Merton — as  for  convenience  I  shall  call  him — was 
unfortunately  still  confined  to  his  house  with  in- 
fluenza, but  his  son  put  himself  at  our  disposal  in 
a  series  of  friendly  offices,  from  changing  money  to 
helping  us  to  plan  out  our  future  movements.  In 
the  first  transaction  we  learned  that  hitherto  our 
ignorance  of  the  rate  of  exchange  had  been  taxed 
to  the  tune  of  two  shillings  in  the  pound.  The 
most  convenient  way  of  carrying  money  in  Spain, 
as  Mr.  Merton  told  us,  is  in  twenty -five-peseta  or 
five-dollar  bills,  each  representing  a  pound  "  at  par." 
It  was  pleasant  to  find  our  new  acquaintance  re- 
sponding to  our  hastily  formed  liking  for  the  Basque 
provinces  with  an  enthusiasm  based  upon  the  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  a  good  many  years.  Young 
Mr.  Merton,  being  an  ardent  cyclist,  was  familiar 
with  every  nook  and  corner  of  the  country  between 
Bilbao  and  San  Sebastian  and  Vitoria.  He  spoke 
of  the  place  and  its  people  with  an  affection  which 
recalled  what  one  had  heard  of  the  passionate 


54  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

nationalism  of  the  Basques  themselves.  He  could 
not  understand  why  so  few  English  people  visited 
this  part  of  Spain,  and  it  was  clear  that  in  his 
opinion  we  should  do  well  to  give  the  whole  of 
our  time  to  the  three  provinces.  And,  indeed, 
more  than  once,  when  later  we  came  to  explore 
the  neighbourhood  on  foot,  we  were  tempted  to 
give  up  our  purpose  of  seeing  something  of  the 
real  Spain  to  spend  the  rest  of  our  holiday  in 
dawdling  from  village  to  village  between  Bilbao 
and  San  Sebastian. 

This  book  is  primarily  a  record  of  what  we  saw 
and  heard  for  ourselves,  but  it  may  be  convenient 
occasionally,  as  here,  for  the  benefit  of  readers  un- 
familiar with  the  country,  to  give  a  broader  and 
more  balanced  impression  of  places  and  people  than 
it  was  possible  for  two  strangers  to  form  in  the 
time  at  their  disposal. 

The  three  Basque  provinces  form  roughly  an 
inverted  triangle,  with  its  base  on  the  sea,  bounded 
on  the  east  by  the  Pyrenean  province  of  Navarra 
and  on  the  west  by  the  provinces  of  Santander, 
Burgos,  and  Logrono,  which  are  portions  of  old 
Castile.  Vizcaya  and  Guipuzcoa  share  between 
them  the  coast-line  of  the  Bay  of  Biscay,  while 
Alava  lies  to  the  south.  Bilbao,  San  Sebastian, 
and  Vitoria  are  the  respective  capitals.  The 
Cantabrian  mountains  run  westward  through  the 
provinces  in  two  parallel  chains  from  the  Pyrenees 
to  Cape  Finisterre.  The  climate  of  this  mountain- 
ous or  sub-mountainous  region  is  mild  and  equable, 


THE   BASQUE   PROVINCES          55 

and  admirably  suited  to  agriculture,  which  is  the 
main  occupation  of  its  inhabitants,  except  in  the 
iron-fields  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of 
Bilbao. 

The  Basques,  who  occupy  not  only  the  pro- 
vinces bearing  their  name  but  Navarra  and  the 
neighbouring  part  of  France,  claim  with  apparent 
justice  to  be  the  oldest  race  in  Europe.  Their 
language,  which,  though  I  believe  still  occasionally 
spoken  in  remote  villages,  is  practically  dead,  is 
unlike  any  other  European  tongue.  It  may  be 
studied — after  seven  years  the  devil  is  said  to 
have  learned  only  three  words — in  place-names, 
in  a  few  greetings,  and  in  songs.  In  print,  with 
its  constantly  recurring  z's  and  &'s,  it  bears  a 
superficial  resemblance  to  Hungarian — at  least  to 
a  person  ignorant  of  both  languages — and  there  is 
also  a  hint  of  something  else  which  puts  one  on  the 
track  of  a  tantalising  theory  of  origins  to  which  I 
shall  refer  again.  The  Basques  might  be  described 
as  the  home-rulers  of  Spain.  For  centuries  they 
were  a  republican-  community  with  freedom  from 
taxes  and  military  service.  But  during  the  Carlist 
wars  between  1834  and  1876  they  fought  on  the 
losing  side  of  Don  Carlos,  and  this  led  to  the 
withdrawal  of  their  Fueros,  or  special  privileges. 
They  still,  however,  enjoy  a  certain  liberty  of 
local  government. 

The  Basques  are  brave,  honest,  and  industrious. 
As  Mr.  Merton  said,  "  You  could  leave  a  bag  of 
gold  in  the  high-road  anywhere  in  the  provinces 


I 

56  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

and  be  sure  of  finding  it  again."  By  him  and  by 
others  we  heard  it  more  than  once  repeated  that 
"It  is  the  Basque  provinces  that  keep  Spain  to- 
gether." By  what — for  no  reason  but  a  comparison 
with  other  races — strikes  one  as  an  anomaly,  the 
Basques  are  not  only  the  most  energetic  and  enter- 
prising people  in  Spain,  but  they  are  also  the  most 
devout.  In  relation  to  the  general  Catholicism  of 
the  country  they  hold  a  place  like  that  of  the 
Bretons  in  France.  On  a  first  acquaintance  and 
misled  by  their  appearance,  the  headdress  of  the 
men,  their  connection  with  the  sea,  their  passionate 
nationalism,  and  the  fact  that  their  most  poignant 
political  ceremony  is  associated  with  an  oak  tree, 
one  is  tempted  to  account  for  their  devotion  by 
assuming  a  Celtic  origin  to  the  race.  What  little 
is  known  of  its  origin,  however,  is  directly  against 
this  theory.  Whatever  the  Basques  may  be,  they 
are  not  Celts.  Every  Basque  is  legally  a  nobleman 
and  entitled  to  bear  arms,  but  his  pride  of  race  is 
expressed  only  in  a  simple  dignity  and  an  unfailing 
courtesy  to  neighbours  and  strangers  alike. 

Bilbao  is  frankly  a  commercial  town.  Although 
it  has  suffered  the  aesthetic  degradation  which 
seems  to  follow  inevitably  in  the  wake  of  mining, 
it  preserves  the  atmosphere  of  romantic  adventure 
and  the  old,  inexplicable  charm  of  tarry  and  briny 
odours  and  mixed  languages  which  hangs  about  a 
seaport.  It  reminds  you  a  little  of  Bristol.  Like 
Bristol,  too,  the  principal  contribution  of  Bilbao  to 
history  was  the  part  it  played  in  civil  war.  It  was 


BILBAO   MARKET  57 

the  centre  of  both  Carlist  wars,  and  at  least  one 
battle  in  which  English  blue-jackets  took  part  was 
fought  in  the  trailing  suburb  we  had  passed  that 
morning  in  the  tram.  The  old  town,  a  heart- 
shaped  quarter  of  narrow  streets,  is  tucked  away 
between  a  crook  of  the  Nervion  and  a  range  of 
hills,  and  on  the  left  bank  of  the  river  a  larger  new 
town  of  wide  streets  and  imposing  buildings  is 
rapidly  growing.  Some  idea  of  the  recent  pros- 
perity of  Bilbao  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact 
that  between  1885  and  1901  the  population  more 
than  doubled. 

We  found  our  way  to  the  immense  market  in 
the  Plaza  Vieja  beside  the  river,  overlooked  by  the 
fifteenth-century  church  of  San  Antonio  Abad,  as 
if  the  more  primitive  life  of  the  town  were  gathered 
together  for  preservation  at  the  foot  of  its  oldest 
church.  We  found  this  to  be  the  most  interesting 
corner  of  Bilbao.  The  whole  space  between  the 
range  of  covered  markets  and  the  surrounding 
buildings  was  taken  up  with  booths  and  a  great 
crowd  of  people,  forming  a  shifting  mass  of  colour 
that  was  sober  and  harmonious  rather  than  brilliant. 
The  slight  annoyance  of  being  stared  at  on  account 
of  my  English  cap,  reminded  me  to  get  a  boina. 
We  went  into  a  small  shop  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
market,  where,  for  the  sum  of  one  peseta,  I  achieved, 
if  not  invisibility,  at  least  a  protective  affinity  to 
my  surroundings.  The  buying  of  the  boina  was 
quite  a  charming  little  function.  Not  only  the 
proprietor  but  three  or  four  customers  were  inter- 


58  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

ested  in  the  transaction.  They  seemed  to  take  it 
as  a  personal  compliment  that  a  foreigner  should 
wish  to  wear  the  cap  of  the  country.  The  whole 
stock  of  the  shop  had  to  be  overhauled  to  find  a 
baina  of  the  proper  size  and  droop ;  mirrors  were 
brought,  and  when  I  was  finally  capped  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  audience,  they  declared,  evi- 
dently with  the  idea  of  paying  me  the  highest 
compliment  they  knew,  that  I  would  pass  for  a 
Basque.  The  advantage  of  the  change  to  our- 
selves was  really  remarkable.  Thereafter,  unless 
we  spoke,  we  passed  everywhere  without  the  least 
attention. 

The  stalls,  overflowing  with  flowers,  fruit, 
vegetables,  pastry,  poultry,  fish,  clothing,  and 
"  fancy  goods,"  were  so  closely  packed  together 
that  it  was  difficult  to  move  between  them 
without  upsetting  something.  Everybody  was 
talking  loudly  and  excitedly  but  good-humouredly. 
Against  the  general  ground-tone  of  blue,  dull 
orange  and  yellow  and  a  tint  that  I  can  only 
describe  as  faded  cardinal  were  the  predominating 
colours  of  the  dresses.  As  many  people  seemed  to 
be  there  for  pleasure  as  for  business.  Girls  in  twos 
and  threes,  with  linked  arms  and  flirting  fans,  and 
young  "  bloods "  with  cigarettes  or  carnations  in 
their  mouths,  wandered  up  and  down  the  central 
avenue  under  the  glass  roof  of  the  covered  market. 
Here  and  there  we  saw  groups  of  bare-legged 
fisherwomen ;  magnificent  creatures  who  walk  ten 
miles  by  night  from  the  coast  villages  of  Bermeo 


BILBAO   MARKET  59 

and  Plencia  with  heavy  loads  in  flat  baskets  on 
their  heads,  to  deliver  their  fish  fresh  to  Bilbao 
market  in  the  morning.  We  saw  many  familiar 
fish  in  the  market,  bream,  gurnet,  red  mullet,  and 
the  inevitable  hake. 

For  a  few  centimes  we  bought  our  lunch — two 
rolls  of  maize  bread  and  a  pound  of  cherries — at  the 
stalls  and  took  it  into  a  wine-shop  facing  the  river. 
On  the  parapet  leading  to  a  bridge  somebody  had 
roughly  painted  in  large  black  letters  "  Viva  la 
repub — ,"  and  ended  for  want  of  room.  The  re- 
volutionary sentiment,  strangled  at  birth,  so  to 
speak,  struck  me  as  peculiarly  and  pathetically 
Spanish.  The  tavern  was  a  cool  cave  of  a  place, 
lined  with  bottles,  fortified  with  barrels  and  wine- 
skins. The  man  at  the  counter  and  a  fox-terrier 
were  its  only  occupants.  We  got  two  tumblers  of 
rough  but  good  red  wine,  drawn  from  the  skin,  at 
the  rate  of  a  penny  a  glass,  and  carried  them  to  a 
rude  table  near  the  door,  which  was  protected  from 
the  sun  by  a  swaying  curtain  of  white  canvas. 
Two  or  three  labourers  presently  came  in  and, 
opening  newspaper  parcels  of  food,  ate  and  drank 
with  us.  From  each  man  we  received  a  rough  but 
friendly  greeting. 

Afterwards  we  lounged  about  the  narrow  streets 
of  the  old  town,  with  their  tall,  cliff-like  houses, 
looking  into  shop  windows  watching  the  progress 
of  world-old  but  to  us  unfamiliar  trades,  the  crafts 
of  the  coppersmith,  the  worker  in  hemp,  and  the 
turner  of  wood,  and  every  moment  growing  more 


60  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

fascinated  by  the  unobtrusive  novelty  of  the  life 
about  us.  There  was  very  little  wheeled  traffic  in 
the  streets,  and  the  few  carts  were  drawn  by  great, 
raw-boned  mules  with  hard,  wicked-looking  heads 
or  mild  cream  or  dove-coloured  oxen,  preceded  by  a 
man  with  a  goad,  and  moving  slowly,  as  if  each 
step  were  carefully  thought  out.  In  one  place  we 
saw  a  beautifully-kept  donkey — a  very  different 
creature  from  the  "  moke "  at  home — festooned 
with  bladders  for  making  sausage  skins.  The 
constantly  recurring  sign,  "  Se  venden  voladores  " 
("Here  they  sell  rockets")  puzzled  us  until  we 
remembered  the  innumerable  saints'  days  and, 
consequently,  holidays  of  the  Latin  calendar.  An 
extraordinary  number  of  the  people  of  Bilbao 
seemed  to  be  suffering  from  toothache,  having 
their  swollen  faces  tied  up  with  handkerchiefs. 
This,  we  afterwards  heard,  is  attributed  to  the 
presence  of  so  much  iron  in  the  water. 

We  sat  down  to  rest  in  the  cool  portico  of  the 
church  of  Santiago.  The  huge,  irregular,  ribbed 
vaulting  overhead  reminded  us  of  bat's  wings.  A 
few  men  were  sleeping  on  the  stone  benches,  and  a 
gang  of  little  boys  played  some  desultory  and  to 
us  incomprehensible  game  around  the  pillars.  The 
smallest  and  prettiest  running  near  us,  we  tried  to 
make  friends  with  him.  James  had  a  never-failing 
attraction  in  the  shape  of  a  watch  at  his  wrist.  I 
believe  he  could  have  worked  his  way  throughout 
the  length  and  breadth  of  Spain  on  this  alone ;  it 
broke  down  the  barriers  of  reserve  with  everybody 


A   PIECE   OF   ETIQUETTE  61 

from  Civil  Guards  and  post-office  officials  to  little 
children.  The  other  boys  came  up  and  stood  round 
us  with  friendly  curiosity.  When  James  addressed 
the  child  as  "Mi  nino"  ("My  little  one"),  the 
biggest  of  the  group  stepped  hastily  forward  and 
said: 

"  Something  Frenchman,  he  is  not  your  little 
one.  He  is  my  little  one,  for  he  is  my  brother," 
at  the  same  time  menacing  James  with  a  piece  of 
outstretched  elastic.  We  corrected  his  notion  of 
our  nationality  and  soothed  his  brotherly  anxiety, 
and  when  we  lighted  our  cigarettes  he  and  another 
boy  politely  asked  for  the  delightful  little  photo- 
graphs of  Goya  etchings  which  are  given  away 
with  the  cheapest  matches  in  Spain.  Then  the 
boys  retired  to  a  little  distance  and  gravely  con- 
sulted together.  They  seemed,  by  their  shy 
glances  in  our  direction,  to  be  discussing  a  point 
of  etiquette.  Presently  we  saw  something  being 
passed  from  dirty  hand  to  dirty  hand,  and  then  the 
spokesman  came  forward  and,  with  a  bow,  pre- 
sented us  with  two  tiny  star-shaped  biscuits.  It 
would  have  been  a  sheer  brutality  not  to  have 
eaten  them.  We  were  now  accepted  as  friends, 
and  the  big  boy  suggested  that  1  should  take  his 
photograph,  but  he  understood  immediately  when 
I  explained  that  there  was  not  enough  light. 

Being  unable  to  get  away  from  his  office,  young 
Mr.  Merton  had  asked  a  friend  to  explain  to  us 
the  intricacies  of  Pelota.  At  the  time  arranged  a 
porter  took  us  to  a  large,  decayed-looking  building 


62  A    SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

in  the  new  town  and  handed  us  over  to  a  tall 
Englishman  who  was  evidently  feverishly  in- 
terested in  the  game  that  was  going  on.  He 
hurried  us  up  a  stone  staircase  into  a  gallery 
divided  into  boxes  or  palcos  overlooking  the 
covered  court  (or  fronton),  where  four  white-clad 
men,  two  with  red  sashes  and  two  with  blue,  were 
playing  a  sort  of  furious  "fives."  An  umpire 
supported  by  two  referees  sat  apart  on  a  kitchen 
chair,  and  half-a-dozen  men  wearing  scarlet  boinas, 
with  note-books  in  their  hands  and  their  faces 
upturned  to  the  gallery,  vociferated  the  quickly 
changing  odds. 

The  clamour  of  the  "  bookies  "  and  the  excite- 
ment of  our  companion  made  it  at  once  evident 
that  the  chief  interest  of  the  game  as  it  is  played 
in  the  larger  towns  is  as  a  means  of  gambling. 
In  itself  Pelota,  originally  Basque  but  now  played 
throughout  Spain,  is  an  admirable  game  of  skill, 
needing  strength  and  activity.  The  general  prin- 
ciple of  the  game,  as  in  fives,  is  keeping  up  the 
rebound  of  a  ball  from  a  high  wall.  Missing  the 
ball,  or  causing  it  to  strike  the  wall  below  a  line 
marked  at  a  certain  height  from  the  ground,  or 
above  the  limit  of  the  wall,  which  is  about  thirty 
feet  high,  gives  one  point  to  the  opponents.  The 
ball,  which  is  of  solid  rubber  covered  with  kid- 
leather,  and  weighs  about  four  ounces,  is  played 
in  three  different  ways ;  with  the  bare  hand- 
probably  the  original  method — with  a  gauntlet  of 
basket-work,  or,  as  we  saw  it  played  here,  with  a 


THE   GAME   OF   PELOTA  63 

heavy  wooden  bat  about  eighteen  inches  long, 
shaped  like  an  Indian  club  with  flattened  sides. 

The  players  we  saw  were  highly-trained  pro- 
fessionals;  their  quickness  of  eye  and  hand  and 
the  force  of  their  "  serving "  were  marvellous. 
Frequently  the  ball  would  rebound  from  the  wall 
the  whole  length  of  the  fronton,  which  was  about 
seventy  yards.  They  played  apparently  with 
whole-hearted  dash  and  energy,  but  we  were 
assured  by  our  companion  that  the  game  was  pro- 
bably sold.  And  certainly  at  every  fault  there  were 
loud  groans  and  cries  of  "Ladronf"  ("Thief!") 
from  the  people  under  the  gallery,  as  if  the  players' 
dishonesty  were  taken  for  granted.  Between  the 
games  the  players,  who  were  lithe  young  fellows 
in  the  pink  of  condition,  drank  wine  or  beer,  and 
drenched  their  bats  in  water,  rasping  the  handles 
with  a  tool  in  order  to  get  a  better  grip.  At  the 
end  of  the  afternoon  our  English  companion  had 
won  about  a  sovereign.  But  for  the  lower  level 
of  skill,  Pelota  is  more  interesting  as  we  saw  it 
played  afterwards  in  the  villages  by  boys  and 
young  men  in  an  open  fronton  surrounded  by 
mulberry  trees. 

Towards  evening  we  climbed  one  of  the  hills 
behind  Luchana,  part  of  the  long  suburb  we  had 
passed  that  morning  in  the  tram.  Here  there  is 
a  lonely  cemetery,  a  great  square  planted  with 
cypress  trees  surrounded  by  high  walls,  with  a 
massive  gateway  as  if  to  secure  the  peace  of  the 
dead  against  the  interruption  of  the  living.  On 


64  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

each  corner  of  the  square  a  text  of  Scripture  is 
deeply  carved  in  Basque  and  Spanish.  To  give 
some  idea  of  the  baffling  "  look "  of  the  former 
language,  I  quote  the  following  : 

"  Labur  larri  ta  kontank  dira  gure  lurreko  egunak." 

Having  omitted  to  note  chapter  and  verse,  I 
must  give  a  literal  rendering  of  the  Spanish 
version : 

"Afflicted,  few  and  short  are  our  days  on  the  earth.'' 

From  here  the  town  of  Bilbao  was  hidden,  but 
we  had  a  good  view  of  the  Nervion,  and  fold  after 
fold  of  the  surrounding  hills.  An  angry  sky  was 
settling  down  upon  the  further  peaks,  and  the  low 
sun  filled  the  valley  with  dusty  gold,  enhancing 
the  sullen  beauty  of  this  region  of  mines  and 
furnaces. 

We  rose  early  in  the  morning  and  took  tram 
to  Las  Arenas,  to  bathe.  Las  Arenas,  well  named 
"The  Sands,"  lies  at  the  mouth  of  the  river 
opposite  the  bright  little  residential  town  of 
Portugalete,  with  which  it  is  connected  by  a 
suspension  bridge,  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high 
and  more  than  five  hundred  feet  long,  and  a  flying 
ferry.  It  is  a  place  of  sand-blasted  summer  villas 
and  hotels  and  tamarisk  avenues  overlooking  the 
outer  harbour  with  its  long  mole  and  lighthouse. 

Bathing  was  a  sober  function  in  a  roped-in 
enclosure  of  water  and  clammy  seaweed  that  felt 
like  tepid  soup  with  the  meat  left  in.  A  few  men 


BATHING   AT   LAS   ARENAS        65 

and  women  in  severe  bathing-gowns  clung  to  the 
ropes  and  churned  the  water  with  their  legs.  The 
man  from  whom  we  hired  our  boxes  stood  at 
the  water's  edge  with  sheets  to  envelope  us  the 
moment  we  emerged,  but  whether  for  our  com- 
fort or  for  reasons  of  modesty  I  don't  know. 

It  was  on  our  return  to  Bilbao  that  we  saw 
the  little  incident  which  helped  to  confirm  my 
bad  impression  of  a  certain  tram- conductor.  As 
our  tram  waited  at  a  crossing  we  heard  a  shout, 
and  an  enraged  young  man,  with  a  long  knife  in 
his  hand,  tore  down  the  road.  A  heavy  stone 
whizzed  after  him,  and  looking  out  we  saw  the 
conductor  of  the  tram  ahead,  who  was  the  object 
of  my  suspicion,  in  the  act  of  hurling  another. 
Of  course  we  didn't  know  which  of  the  two  men 
was  the  aggressor,  but  the  incident  was  another 
mark  against  the  only  man  we  met  in  Spain  whom 
we  regarded  as  an  enemy. 

This  being  Sunday,  we  attended  High  Mass 
at  the  church  of  San  Nicolas,  an  octagonal 
basilica,  with  an  altar  backed  by  an  elaborately 
carved  but  ungilded  retablo  on  each  alternate 
side.  It  is  remarkable  how  a  church  gains  in 
dignity,  and  at  the  same  time  in  friendliness, 
from  an  open  floor  space  unencumbered  with 
seats.  Most  of  the  people  knelt  upon  their  folded 
handkerchiefs.  In  the  middle  of  the  polished  floor 
a  tiny  boy  who  had  provided  himself  with  a  camp- 
stool,  followed  the  service  with  childish  gravity 
and  a  complete  absence  of  self-consciousness. 
5 


66  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

There  is  nothing  remarkable  of  interest  or  beauty 
in  San  Nicolas,  but  in  spite  of  the  eighteenth- 
century  debasement  of  style  there  is  a  certain 
restful  satisfaction  in  the  symmetrical  regularity 
of  its  plan,  and  in  the  brown  gloom,  as  of  an 
old  library,  particularly  when  a  little  relieved  by 
candlelight  and  coloured  vestments. 

We  found  the  market  as  busy  as  yesterday. 
As  I  stood  upon  the  steps  of  San  Antonio  Abad 
to  take  the  photograph  facing  this  page,  a  man 
asked  me  something  about  the  Fiesta  de  Navarra. 
I  did  not  understand  what  he  wanted  to  know,  and 
told  him  so.  He  stared  and  seemed,  I  thought,  a 
little  offended ;  but  it  did  not  occur  to  me  until 
he  had  turned  away  that  with  blue  serge  suits, 
flannel  shirts,  and  boinas  we  had  so  successfully 
adapted  ourselves  to  our  environment  that  he  had 
mistaken  us  for  his  fellow-countrymen.  I  made 
a  point  of  seeing  him  again  and  explaining  that  we 
were  Englishmen,  when  he  was  all  courtesy,  and 
told  us  that  this  being  the  Festival  of  Navarra^all 
the  Navarrese  who  happened  to  live  in  Bilbao  were 
holding  a  reunion.  Moving  in  the  direction  of  the 
A  renal,  we  were  startled  by  a  series  of  reports 
which  we  at  first  thought  were  pistol-shots,  but 
immediately  concluded  to  be  the  rockets  pictur- 
esquely advertised  as  "  fliers."  '/  Then  we  came  in 
sight  of  a  procession  of  priests  and  children  crossing 
the  bridge  of  Isabel  Segunda,  which  is  the  principal 
connection  between  the  old  and  the  new  town. 
A  vast  crowd  of  people  standing  silently  in  th< 


THE   "FIESTA   DE   NAVARRA"      67 

Arenal  formed  a  lane  for  the  procession  to  pass 
through,  and  from  some  corner  emerged  a  Basque 
band  of  three  musicians,  each  playing  with  one 
hand  a  kind  of  flageolet  called  the  dulsinya  and 
with  the  other  a  drum  or  tamboril.  Led  by  the 
musicians,  the  procession  turned  up  a  side  street 
into  the  Plaza  Nueva,  an  arcaded  square  of  solid- 
looking  houses.  Here  the  Navarrese  disappeared 
into  a  building,  before  the  entrance  of  which  the 
musicians  continued  for  some  time  playing. 

As  we  were  unable  to  see  what  was  going  on 
we  returned  to  the  Arenal,  where  the  municipal 
band  was  playing  under  the  trees.  It  was  playing 
Massenet's  "  Dance  of  the  Furies,"  and  playing  it 
well.  There  is  something  a  little  terrible  in  the 
effect  of  music  upon  a  Spanish  crowd ;  one  feels 
that  the  musician  has  a  responsibility  like  that  of 
a  man  bearing  a  light  in  the  neighbourhood  of  a 
powder  magazine.  The  large  crowd  surrounding 
the  band-stand  was  silent  and  absolutely  motion- 
less. The  people  seemed  actually  to  breathe  in 
unison.  The  passionate  absorption  of  their  pale 
faces  was  intensified  by  the  prevailing  dark  tones 
of  their  dresses  and  by  the  fact  that  heavy  clouds 
were  making  a  gloom  under  the  trees.  There  were 
no  individuals ;  it  was  one  huge  organism  con- 
trolled by  the  conductor's  baton.  One  understood 
why  in  some  countries  certain  tunes  are  forbidden 
for  political  reasons.  The  changes  of  emotion  in 
the  music  were  immediately  and  unanimously  re- 
flected in  the  pale  faces  as  changing  lights  are 


68  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

reflected  in  the  particles  of  a  mass ;  at  a  passage  in 
slow  time  it  might  have  been  said  that  the  whole 
crowd  was  plunged  in  grief.  When  the  music 
ended,  a  little  shiver  like  the  stirring  of  leaves 
passed  over  the  crowd ;  quite  visibly,  and  before 
bodily  movement  had  begun,  the  single  organism 
split  up  into  individuals  as  if  at  the  release  of 
some  tension.  And  then,  as  if  the  weather  had 
waited  for  the  music,  the  clouds  overhead  broke 
in  a  thunder-shower,  and  there  was  a  laughing, 
chattering  rush  for  the  shelter  of  trees  or  the 
awnings  of  the  numerous  cafe's  that  surround  the 
Arenal. 

We  lunched  with  young  Mr.  Merton  at  a 
restaurant  near  the  place  where  the  Navarrese  were 
holding  their  festival.  As  we  sat  over  our  paella, 
merluza,  and  chuletas,  and  listened  to  our  host's 
enthusiastic  description  of  the  villages  we  were 
going  to  visit,  there  came  up  to  us  the  muffled  sound 
of  speech-making  followed  by  the  clapping  of  hands, 
the  stamping  of  feet,  and  the  rapping  of  knives 
upon  a  table. 

Mr.  Merton  took  us  to  see  the  Palacio  de  la 
Diputacion  or  Provincial  Legislature,  a  large  new 
building  in  that  exuberant  "  baroque "  style  of 
architecture  which  would  be  intolerable  anywhere 
out  of  Spain  ;  but  somehow  when  seen  in  the  right 
context — if  the  word  may  pass — of  climate,  man- 
ners, and  language,  escapes  vulgarity  and  is  not 
without  a  certain  full-flavoured  impressiveness. 
Over  the  main  staircase  there  is  a  good  stained- 


THE   SOCIEDAD   BILBA1NA         69 

glass  window  by  a  local  artist  representing  the 
ratification  of  the  Fueros,  or  special  privileges  of 
Biscay,  by  King  Ferdinand  V.  of  Castile  under  the 
famous  Tree  of  Guernica.  The  general  appearance 
of  the  well-kept  and  handsomely  furnished  rooms 
and  offices  in  the  Diputacion  seemed  to  indicate 
an  efficient  and  progressive  local  government,  and 
reminded  one  of  the  flourishing  municipalities  of 
Birmingham  or  Manchester. 

Theoretically  the  Diputacion  was  closed  to 
visitors  for  a  reason  which  would  not  occur  to 
strangers,  and  might  be  the  cause  of  serious  dis- 
appointment. On  wet  days,  which  are  naturally 
the  days  a  traveller  reserves  for  looking  at  interiors, 
it  is  the  custom  in  Spain  to  close  public  buildings 
for  the  sake  of  the  floors*  As  in  the  present 
instance,  however,  this  regulation  will  generally 
yield  to  the  peseta. 

On  the  following  day  Mr.  Merton  senior,  who 
shared  his  son's  enthusiasm  for  the  land  of  his 
adoption,  was  kind  enough  to  take  the  risks  of 
convalescence  from  influenza  to  entertain  us  at 
his  club,  the  Sociedad  Bilbaina.  This  club  was  a 
revelation  for  which  we  had  been  gradually  pre- 
pared by  casual  observations  during  the  last  two 
days,  of  the  enlightenment  and  dignified  amenity 
of  civil  life  in  this  part  of  Spain.  It  was  not 
merely  the  provision  for  social  ease  and  comfort,  the 
excellence  of  the  luncheon  and  the  appointments 
of  the  recreation-rooms,  which  were  of  a  standard 
equal  to  that  of  the  best  clubs  in  London,  that 


70  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

so  impressed  us,  but  the  regard  for  and  evidence  of 
the  intellectual  vitality  of  the  community.  Bilbao 
is  frankly  a  commercial  town,  and  I  suppose  its 
inhabitants  would  describe  themselves  as  a  com- 
munity of  business  men ;  but  their  principal  club 
possesses  a  library  which  one  would  expect  to  find 
only  in  a  centre  of  learning.  When  Mr.  Merton 
took  us  into  this  quiet  room  we  were  prepared  for 
a  good  collection  of  books  of  reference ;  what  we 
were  not  prepared  for  was  a  library  containing  the 
pick  of  European  literature  in  prose  and  poetry, 
and  the  more  significant  works  of  modern  science 
and  philosophical  speculation.  At  a  hasty  exami- 
nation I  noted  the  names  of  Dante,  Milton,  Goethe, 
Balzac,  Lombroso,  and  Herbert  Spencer.  On  the 
long  tables,  under  green-shaded  electric  lights,  I 
saw  not  only  the  native  periodical  publications,  but 
the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  Jugend,  The  Studio, 
The  Art  Journal,  and  innumerable  English,  French, 
Italian,  and  German  newspapers. 

In  addition  to  a  splendid  library  the  Sociedad 
Bilbaina  provides  a  separate  room  for  works  of 
reference  in  those  subjects  with  which  its  members 
are  professionally  engaged,  and  a  room  fitted  up 
as  a  drawing-office  for  architects  and  engineers. 
Finally,  the  more  purely  recreative  advantages  of 
the  club  are  completed  by  the  peculiarly  Conti- 
nental institution  of  a  roulette-room. 

Our  growing  persuasion  that  in  efficient  organi- 
sation the  private  life  of  Spain  is  quietly  advancing 
independently  of  and  beyond  its  official  institutions 


THE   SOCIEDAD   BILBAINA         71 

was  curiously  confirmed,  as  if  by  an  object-lesson, 
when,  after  bidding  good-bye  to  our  host,  we  went 
to  the  post-office  to  see  if  there  were  any  letters 
for  us. 

An  elderly,  bearded  man  shuffled  forward  to 
the  pigeon-hole  of  the  lista  de  correos  or  poste 
restante,  and  without  removing  his  pipe  from  his 
mouth,  held  out  his  hand  for  my  passport  for  pur- 
poses of  identification.  He  snored  over  the  paper 
for  a  few  seconds  and  his  fat  forefinger  finally  came 
to  rest  on  the  line  describing  my  occupation. 

"  Autor"  he  said  huskily,  but  with  a  certain 
childish  complacency  at  his  cleverness. 

I  repeated  my  name  and  pointed  to  it  in  the 
official  handwriting  and  in  my  own,  but  he  would 
have  none  of  it.  "  Ant  or,  bien"  he  murmured 
knowingly.  He  shuffled  away  and  from  a  com- 
partment labelled  "  A "  took  out  a  packet  of 
letters.  I  protested,  but  he  went  stolidly  through 
the  packet,  shook  his  head  gravely  and  said 
"Nada"  ("Nothing").  I  beseeched  him  to  try 
"  M,"  but  he  only  smiled  sadly  and  folded  up  the 
passport.  Both  James  and  I  were  certain  that 
there  were  letters  for  us  lying  behind  the  pigeon- 
hole, which  was  too  small  to  climb  through,  and  we 
said  things  loudly  in  several  languages.  Hearing 
the  noise,  a  younger  and  smarter  official  came  for- 
ward and  pushed  the  old  gentleman  aside  with  an 
apologetic  smile  to  us  as  if  to  say,  "  It's  only  his 
fun."  He  glanced  at  our  passports  and  at  once 
found  our  letters.  In  handing  them  over  he 


72  A    SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

caught  sight  of  the  watch  on  James's  wrist  and 
asked  how  much  it  cost.  This  led  to  a  conversa- 
tion about  the  relative  value  of  English  and 
Spanish  money,  and  a  little  shyly  the  official  asked 
us  what  was  the  equivalent  in  centimes  of  the  Eng- 
lish penny  stamp.  After  the  enlightened  atmos- 
phere of  the  Sociedad  Bilbaina,  it  was  a  little 
startling  to  find  in  the  government  office  of  a 
busy  town,  frequented  by  English  people,  one 
official  who  didn't  know  how  to  use  a  passport 
and  another  ignorant  of  the  relation  between  the 
English  coinage  and  his  own  even  in  matters 
which  concerned  his  own  department.  The  ano- 
maly was  one  of  the  "  cosas  de  Espanci "  which 
baffle  the  stranger. 

Attracted  by  what  we  had  seen  of  the  coast, 
we  decided  to  spend  our  last  evening  in  this  neigh- 
bourhood at  one  of  the  fishing  villages  beyond  Las 
Arenas.  We  had  the  pleasant  company  of  a  young 
countrywoman  of  our  own.  An  English  girl  with- 
out relatives  in  Spain  has  few  opportunities  for  free 
movement  out  of  doors  in  the  evening,  and  this 
gave  our  companion  a  high-spirited  enjoyment  of 
the  excursion.  To  keep  in  the  picture  she  went 
bare-headed  and  carried  a  red  rose  in  her  hand. 
We  took  tram  to  Algorta,  and  the  conductor 
happened  to  be  the  man  whom  I  had  come  to 
regard  as  my  natural  enemy.  There  followed  an 
incident,  too  trivial  to  be  set  down  but  for  its 
connection,  which  finally  convinced  James  that  my 
first  impression  of  the  conductor  was  not  unjust. 


AN   EVENING  73 

I  asked  him  for  three  tickets  to  Algorta  and  gave 
him  a  two-peseta  piece  in  payment.  Avoiding  my 
eyes  and  with  a  sullen,  furtive  manner  as  if  he 
felt  the  dislike  between  us,  the  man  gave  me  the 
tickets  and  a  single  copper  coin  of  ten  centimes. 
I  knew  that  the  ride  was  a  long  one  and  took 
the  change  without  question.  Some  time  later 
I  happened  to  glance  at  the  tickets  and  saw  that 
they  were  for  thirty  centimes  each,  so  that  the  man 
ought  to  have  given  me  a  peseta  change  as  well  as 
the  ten  centimes.  It  was  as  if  one  had  received 
a  penny  instead  of  one  and  a  penny.  Of  course 
it  was  too  late  to  say  anything  now,  and  the  trick 
had  been  so  neatly  done  that  we  were  more  amused 
at  my  stupidity  than  angry  with  the  thief.  But  it 
seemed  more  than  a  coincidence  that  we  should 
have  been  cheated  by  that  particular  man.  We 
were  comparatively  easy  victims,  but  in  no  other 
case — except  for  the  toll  taken  of  our  ignorance 
by  money-changers  -  -  were  we  robbed  or  given 
wrong  change  or  bad  coin  during  the  whole  of  our 
visit  to  Spain.  The  little  episode  coming  on  top 
of  the  others  went  to  deepen  one  of  those  curious 
fixed  ideas  of  natural  enmity  which  I  believe  are 
at  the  bottom  of  many  unexplained  and  apparently 
motiveless  crimes.  I  have  the  almost  superstitious 
feeling  that  somewhere,  some  when,  and  somehow 
I  shall  meet  again  a  certain  Bilbao  tram-conductor 
and  we  shall  have  out  to  a  finish  the  smouldering 
hatred  between  us. 

A  pleasanter  incident  happened  in  the  tram, 


74  A    SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

and  one  that  well  illustrated  the  charming  sim- 
plicity of  the  people.  Sitting  beside  me  was  a 
tired-looking,  poorly  dressed  young  woman  with 
a  little  girl  of  about  eighteen  months  on  her  lap.' 
The  child  was  crying  as  if  in  pain  and  I  did  some- 
thing to  amuse  her,  with  the  result  that  she  pre- 
sently held  out  her  arms  to  me.  I  took  her  on 
my  knee  and  talked  English  baby  talk  to  her. 
The  mother  smiled  gravely  and  said  in  a  tone  of 
apology : 

"  Habla  Castellano  solo  "  ("  She  speaks  Castilian 
only  "). 

Dusk  had  fallen  before  we  reached  Algorta ;  a 
wonderful  violet  dusk  full  of  soft  odours  and  the 
soundless  moving  of  the  tamarisk.  Behind  the 
mountains  which  guard  the  mouth  of  the  river 
lightning  played  almost  continuously,  but  without 
any  sound  of  thunder,  and  below  the  golden  lamps 
of  Portugalete  were  doubled  in  the  quiet  waters 
of  the  bay.  We  followed  winding  lanes  along  the 
cliff  in  the  direction  of  a  dark  headland.  Some- 
where behind  a  high  wall  girls  were  singing  a 
queer  wandering  tune  "  something,"  as  James  flip- 
pantly but  accurately  described  it,  "  between  a 
Gregorian  chant  and  a  coon  song,"  with  one  full- 
throated  voice  following  the  air  and  others  coming 
in  chorus  like  the  petition  and  response  of  a  litany. 
Presently  we  came  to  a  village  of  narrow  descend- 
ing streets,  rude  steps  and  little  quays,  dim  lit 
with  angle  lamps,  filled  with  the  hushing  of  the 
sea,  the  tang  of  brine,  and  the  scent  of  hidden 


AN   EVENING  75 

gardens.  In  a  courtyard  women  were  seated  and 
children  stooped  over  lighted  candles,  screening 
them  with  their  hands,  in  some  celebration  which 
was  half  a  game  and  half  a  piece  of  ritual.  The 
children  greeted  us  in  laughing  undertones,  press- 
ing about  us  in  the  dark  affectionately  but  in- 
curiously, as  if  we  were  long-expected.  They 
touched  us  with  their  little  hands,  asking  to  be 
lifted  up,  and  lisped  their  flower -soft  names, 
Manuela,  Asuncion,  Dolores,  claiming  invisible 
brothers  and  sisters.  The  women,  mothers  and 
grandmothers,  addressed  us  with  the  same  quiet 
confidence,  asking  us  if  the  little  ones  were  not 
heavy  for  their  ages,  speaking  always  in  a  murmur 
as  if  under  the  spell  of  the  night.  We  found  our 
way,  guided  by  the  soft,  laughing  direction  "Abajo" 
"  A  la  derecha"  "  A  la  izquierda"  followed  by 
"Adios!"  of  some  invisible  man  or  woman,  to 
a  sheltered  quay  overlooking  the  bay  with  a  fur- 
tive incoming  of  pale  bands  of  foam  and  a  back- 
ground of  mountains  only  relieved  upon  the  night 
by  the  summer  lightning  which  played  unceasingly 
behind  them.  Here  we  sat  for  nearly  an  hour 
listening  to  the  lapping  of  the  water,  speaking 
rarely,  in  a  mood  of  absolute  contentment. 

I  don't  know  the  name  of  the  village,  I  don't 
want  to  know  it  nor  to  see  it  again  by  daylight. 
I  want  to  keep  the  memory  of  that  evening  un- 
altered. It  is  a  memory  with  the  fragile  charm 
and  at  the  same  time  the  strange  reality  of  a 
dream,  made  up  of  tamarisk,  the  odour  of  brine, 


76  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

children's  kisses  in  the  dark  and  the  hands  and 
voices,  the  intimate  human  presences  of  people 
whose  faces  I  did  not  see,  whose  names  I  did  not 
know,  in  an  unidentified  place  of  crooked  streets 
and  hidden  gardens  on  the  shores  of  the  Bay  of 
Biscay. 


CHAPTER  V 

A     LITTLE     MEAT ON      THE      ROAD  —  GUERNICA AN 

EMBARRASSING    MOMENT MARIA    TERESA THE    CLUB 

"V\7'E  intended  to  make  a  little  tour  on  foot 
through  certain  parts  of  Vizcaya  and  Alava 
before  we  rejoined  at  Vitoria  the  main  line  of 
railway  which  was  to  carry  us  to  some  of  the  more 
famous  cities  of  Spain.  As  the  immediate  sur- 
roundings of  Bilbao  on  the  landward  side  are  not 
particularly  interesting,  we  took  train  to  Amore- 
bieta,  a  village  about  twelve  miles  out,  on  the  line 
to  San  Sebastian.  We  shared  a  compartment 
with  a  school-treat,  which  was  very  like  an  English 
school-treat,  with  the  same  dozen  ways  of  haras- 
sing the  elder  persons  in  charge,  climbing  over 
seats,  and  hanging  out  of  windows,  and  the  same 
high-spirited  conviction  that  all  the  world  outside 
wanted  to  come  and  play  with  it.  There  were 
also  the  inevitable  two  or  three  pathetic  little 
big-eyed  creatures  who  had  "out-grown  their 
strength,"  dazed  with  happiness  and  headache, 
who  had  to  be  brought  out  for  air  on  the  swaying 
railed  platform  at  the  end  of  the  coach,  which  the 
railways  of  every  country  in  the  world  except 
England  have  adopted,  and  which  lends  a  new 
and  agitating  joy  to  tunnels. 

77 


78  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

There  are  practical  inconveniences  in  having 
only  a  rudimentary  knowledge  of  a  foreign  lan- 
guage, but  they  are  more  than  made  up  for  by 
the  nature  and  variety  of  the  resulting  situations. 
Hitherto  we  had  had  little  difficulty  in  making 
our  wants  understood,  but  before  we  left  Bilbao  for 
the  country,  we  thought  well  to  ask  Mr.  Merton's 
advice  about  certain  practical  details  of  intercourse 
with  people  less  accustomed  than  townsfolk  to  the 
tongue-tied  helplessness  of  foreigners. 

"  For  example,"  I  said,  "  at  midday  we  come 
to  a  village  where  there  is  a  modest  posada  or 
possibly  only  a  tavern,  and  we  want  a  meal.  How 
do  we  set  about  asking  for  it  ? " 

"  Oh,"  he  said,  "  it  is  quite  simple.  You  stroll 
in,  greet  the  landlord  or  the  landlady  with  a  hail- 
fellow-well-met  air,  and  after  an  interchange  of 
compliments  you  say,  '  Bring  me  whatever  you've 
got ;  una  tortilla — an  omelette,  un  poco  de  carne — 
a  little  meat ;  anything.  They'll  understand.  For 
five  pesetas  a  day  you  can  live  like  lords.' ' 

At  Amorebieta  we  found  a  typical  posada,  a 
low-browed,  whitewashed  building  with  a  crazy, 
unpainted  wooden  balcony,  overflowing  with  car- 
nations, and  a  dusky  interior,  breathing  the  peculiar 
warm,  sweet,  heavy  odour,  something  between  the 
smell  of  the  earth  and  that  of  a  drug,  the  origin 
of  which  I  was  never  able  to  trace,  but  which  will 
always  remain  in  my  memory  as  the  smell  of  Spain. 
A  grandmother  dozed  in  the  doorway,  and  lean 
chickens  walked  in  and  out  of  the  passage. 


A   LITTLE   MEAT  79 

It  would  be  as  well,  we  thought,  to  order  our 
meal  and  get  rid  of  our  burdens  before  we  set  out 
to  explore  the  village.  We  entered,  flung  our 
ruck-sacks  into  a  corner,  and  doffing  our  boinas 
with  an  air  returned  the  hearty  "  Buenos  dias ! "  of 
the  pale,  stout,  handsome  landlady. 

To  her  I  repeated  a  variation  of  the  formula  we 
had  learned  from  Mr.  Merton.  She  nodded  in- 
telligently, and  drawing  us  into  the  kitchen,  which 
with  its  low,  broad  range  without  visible  connection 
with  any  chimney,  and  brass  and  copper  vessels, 
made  one  understand  the  phrase  "batterie  de 
cuisine"  lifted  the  lid  of  a  pot  containing  a  pucker v, 
the  national  stew  of  beef,  bacon,  cabbage,  chick- 
peas, pimientas,  and  other  savoury  trifles.  We 
had  eaten  the  dish  before,  and  knew  that  it  was 
superlatively  good. 

"  The  very  thing ! "  I  cried,  or  thought  I  did, 
and  James  echoed  my  words. 

"  And  at  what  hour  will  your  graces  eat  ? " 
asked  the  landlady. 

"  At  half -past  twelve,"  I  told  her. 

I  wish  I  could  reproduce  on  paper  the  infinite 
soothing  of  her  deep-throated — I  spell  it  phoneti- 
cally— 

"  Moo-oo-y  b'yen  f  " 

One  felt  that  here  was  the  woman  who  under- 
stood. 

"  Oh,  this  is  all  right,"  we  exclaimed  simultane- 
ously as,  after  compliments,  we  left  the  inn  to 
explore  the  village.  We  said  that  we  had  struck 


80  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

the  right  note,  and  we  talked  with  a  touch  of 
superiority  about  people  who  carried  their  nation- 
ality with  them,  who  wanted  bacon  for  breakfast, 
and  objected  to  garlic. 

Amorebieta  stands  prettily  on  a  tributary  of 
the  Nervion.  It  is  connected  with  Bilbao  both 
by  rail  and  by  the  tramway  which  continues  to 
Durango.  The  village,  surrounded  by  maize  and 
corn  fields,  with  a  range  of  hills  to  the  north,  has 
a  little  Plaza  with  shops  and  a  club,  a  large  and 
externally  beautiful  church,  with  a  tower  at  the 
east  end,  and  some  pleasant  villas  embowered  with 
roses  and  honeysuckle.  The  river  is  crossed  by  a 
fine  old  stone  bridge  of  several  arches.  The  in- 
terior of  the  church  is  bare  and  lighter  than  is 
usual  in  this  neighbourhood,  with  an  organ  gallery 
at  the  west  end,  and  a  shallow  recess  on  either 
side  forming  an  abortive  transept.  The  gilded 
retablo  overhangs  in  a  half  dome,  and  on  the  south 
wall  of  the  nave  there  is  one  of  those  startlingly 
realistic,  life-sized  crucifixes,  with  actual  hair,  which 
are,  I  believe,  peculiar  to  Spain. 

To  keep  up  the  right  note  of  savoir  faire,  we 
flung  off  our  coats  and  took  a  hand  at  Pelota  with 
the  boys  playing  under  the  cool  portico  of  the 
church.  The  game  here  was  played  with  the  bare 
hand,  and  I  can't  say  that  we  were  often  successful 
in  striking  the  ball,  though  the  boys  were  politely 
uncritical.  Two  sore-eyed  dogs,  of  some  extra- 
ordinary breed  between  a  pointer  and  a  Chinese 
dragon,  watched  us  in  dejected  amazement. 


ON   THE   ROAD  81 

Afterwards  we  lay  on  the  grass  under  plane 
trees,  with  their  branches  trained  horizontally  into 
a  sort  of  pergola.  The  morning  was  brilliantly 
fine,  with  a  feeling  of  thunder  in  the  still  air. 
Already  we  were  beginning  to  feel  the  subtle 
demoralisation  of  the  South,  the  inclination  to  do 
nothing  contentedly  and  let  happen  what  would. 
We  were  presently  joined  by  a  genial,  able-bodied 
tramp,  who  assured  us  that  he  had  walked  from 
Paris  to  San  Sebastian  in  three  days,  and  that  in 
the  whole  of  Spain  there  was  no  work  to  be  found 
save  only  in  the  mines  about  Bilbao. 

"  My  health,"  he  said  gravely,  "  forbids  me  to 
work  in  the  mines." 

As  if  he  recognised  that  we  were  of  the 
fraternity,  he  did  not  beg  from  us,  though  we 
afterwards  saw  him  trying  some  of  the  villas ; 
but  he  accepted  cigarettes  which,  with  a  fine 
fastidiousness,  he  re -rolled  in  papers  of  his 
own.  The  papers  of  the  cigarettes  at  forty- 
five  centimes  the  packet,  he  said,  were  bad  for 
the  throat. 

We  left  him  asleep,  and  crossed  the  railway 
line  to  a  little  cemetery  with  a  poignant  mingling 
of  roses  and  cypress  trees,  a  chapel  at  one  end  and 
a  tiled  veranda  supported  by  stone  pillars.  As 
we  sat  lazily  counting  the  lizards  which  played 
about  the  hot  steps,  "  Angelus  "  rang  from  the 
church  tower. 

The  arrangement  of  the  bells,  which  were  flat 
in  tone  and  poor  in  harmonics,  as  if  some  quality 


82 


A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 


were  missing  from  the  metal,  was  so  peculiar  that 
I  set  it  down  here. 

'    J_      I  I*      I       J  h 


On  the  first  stroke  a  passing  platelayer  flung 
down  his  tools,  uncovered  his  head,  and  crossed 
himself  reverently. 

At  half-past  twelve  we  returned  to  the  inn. 
There  was  an  air  of  excited  expectancy  about  the 
place  which  a  little  disturbed  us.  The  grand- 
mother, who  seemed  to  be  suffering  from  senile 
dementia,  was  weeping  bitterly.  We  were  shown 
into  a  huge,  bare  room  with  whitewashed  walls 
and  a  long  deal  table,  at  one  end  of  which  a  rough 
but  clean  cloth  was  laid  for  us.  The  rest  of  the 
table  was  heaped  up  with  newly-washed  linen, 
which  a  hard-faced  young  woman  was  ironing. 
We  pledged  her  in  chacoli,  the  thin,  sharp,  "  green  " 
wine  of  the  province,  and  trifled  with  the  good 
maize  bread,  which  is  made  in  the  likeness  of  a 
giant  lunch-biscuit,  with  the  legal  weight  stamped 
upon  its  glazed  surface. 

We  were  not  greatly  disturbed  when  another 
young  woman  brought  in  soup,  because  it  is  usual 


ON   THE   ROAD  83 

to  begin  the  simplest  meal  with  the  broth  in  which 
the  meat  has  been  boiled ;  but  when  the  stew  was 
followed  by  an  omelette,  we  began  to  feel  that  our 
hostess  was  taking  pains  which  we  neither  expected 
nor  desired.  We  wanted  to  be  treated  as  people 
of  the  country.  After  the  omelette  came  the 
inevitable  hake,  cooked  in  oil  with  green  peas,  and 
after  the  hake  a  dish  of  roast  meat,  and  after  that 
a  salad. 

"  They  don't  seem  to  have  quite  understood 
you,"  said  James,  splitting  the  verb  and  the  ripest 
tomato  at  the  same  moment. 

"  Well,  anyhow,"  I  retorted,  "  you  seem  to  be 
making  a  very  good  lunch." 

"  Oh,  we'll  go  through  with  it,"  he  said. 
"  What's  this — roast  chicken  ?  "  It  was.  Little 
children  came  and  peeped  in  at  the  door  with 
dilated  nostrils,  and  the  brothers  and  sisters  of  the 
bird  before  us  climbed  over  our  boots  and  fought 
for  crumbs  of  bread.  The  incoherent  cries  of  the 
grandmother  became  distressing.  Suddenly  James 
dropped  his  knife  and  fork  and  turned  pale ;  we 
had  heard  that  there  was  no  limit  to  the  hospitality 
of  Spain. 

"  Don't  you  understand  why  she  is  crying  ?  " 
he  said.  "  First  the  little  tender  children,  and 
then — no,  I  stop  at  grandmamma." 

Short  of  cannibalism  we  went  on.  The  sound 
of  frying,  the  clatter  of  dishes,  continued.  Three 
separate  young  women  came  and  took  turns  at 
ironing  to  watch  the  Englishmen  eat.  The  little 


84  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

children  danced  in  the  passage  with  the  remains  of 
our  chicken  in  their  fingers,  and  the  cries  of  the 
grandmother  were  choked  by  a  wolfish  gobbling. 
It  was  the  day  of  their  lives. 

"  Enough,  enough  !  We  have  eaten  well !  " 
I  cried  at  last  wildly.  The  third  young  woman 
smiled  and  withdrew,  but  returned  with  a  dish  of 
peaches. 

We  lay  on  the  bare  forms  and  trifled  with 
peaches  and  cigarettes.  The  hard-faced  young 
woman  went  on  ironing  in  silence.  At  last  I 
found  courage  to  say  : 

"  How  much  do  we  pay  for  our  excellent 
meal  ? " 

She  put  down  the  iron  and  went  out  into  the 
kitchen.  There  was  a  long  and  excited  conversa- 
tion. She  returned  and  went  on  ironing.  We 
were  afraid  to  speak ;  she  said  nothing. 

Twenty  minutes  passed.  James  reminded  me 
that  we  had  a  ten-mile  hilly  walk  before  us.  I 
took  up  my  courage  again  and  said  faintly : 

"  Cuanto  ?  " 

She  looked  me  in  the  eyes  and  said,  without 
turning  a  hair  : 

"  Once  pesetas  "  ("  Eleven  pesetas  "). 

"  Cuantas  !  "  we  exclaimed  in  a  breath. 

"  Once  pesetas.  Dos  duros  y  una  peseta  "  ("  Two 
dollars  and  one  peseta  "),  she  added  explicitly. 

I've  paid  as  much — about  four  shillings  each— 
for  a  worse  meal  in  England,  but  for  a  village  in 
that  part  of  Spain  the  charge  was  preposterous. 


ON   THE   ROAD  85 

We  put  down  the  money  without  a  murmur ;  we 
felt  that  the  experience  if  not  the  meal  was  worth 
it.  For  comparison,  I  may  add  that  at  the  next 
village — or  town,  rather — for  two  days  we  were 
lodged  and  fed  "like  lords"  at  the  rate  of  five 
vesetas  each  a  day,  of  course  including  wine.  But 
we  bargained  beforehand. 

Shouldering  our  nick- sacks,  we  took  the  road 
to  Guernica.  On  the  outskirts  of  the  village  we 
begged  carnations  from  a  girl  with  kind  eyes  on 
a  balcony.  At  first  she  was  coy,  but  finally, 
after  a  glance  into  the  room  behind  her,  hastily 
plucked  two  of  the  flowers,  an  apricot  and  a 
salmon  pink,  and  flung  them  down. 

Harvesting  was  going  on  in  the  fields  around 
the  village,  the  dull  blue  dresses  of  the  reapers, 
men  and  women,  contrasting  pleasantly  with 
the  yellow  corn.  Whenever  we  passed  a  group 
within  hailing  distance  they  waved  and  called 
to  us  "Agur!"  which  is  the  Basque  form  of 
"Adios!"  In  a  great  shadowy  barn  we  saw 
men  and  women  on  their  knees  threshing  the 
corn  by  the  simple  method  of  beating  small 
sheaves  upon  the  threshold — thus  explaining  the 
origin  of  the  last  word — so  that  the  grain  fell 
into  a  sack  spread  beneath. 

About  half  a  mile  from  the  village  the  road 
began  to  ascend,  and  for  several  miles  we  were 
steadily  climbing  the  almost  mountainous  ridge 
which  forms  the  northern  wall  of  the  Durango 
valley.  The  hillside  was  clothed  with  bracken 


86  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

and  little  woods  of  oaks,  chestnuts,  and  polled 
beeches  which  gave  a  singular  value  to  the 
silvery  outcrops  of  bare  limestone.  The  waste 
places  by  the  roadside  and  the  hedgerows  were 
full  of  wild  flowers ;  roses,  hemp-agrimony,  rest- 
harrow,  meadowsweet,  purple  loose-strife,  wood- 
bine, clover,  campion,  white  and  pink  blackberry 
blossoms,  St.  John's  wort,  a  campanula-like 
white  and  blue  gentian,  which  I  have  seen  in 
gardens  in  England,  and  several  varieties  of 
heath ;  one  white,  another  with  purple  bells  half 
an  inch  long,  and  a  third  pale  pink  splashed 
with  crimson,  resembling,  if  not  exactly  the 
same  as,  that  which  in  England  is  peculiar  to 
the  Lizard  district  of  Cornwall.  A  moist  wall 
of  rock  above  the  road  was  fringed  with  a  large- 
leaved  maidenhair  fern. 

The  sun  was  hot,  but  the  air  was  so  fine  and 
pure  and  the  surface  of  the  broad,  winding  road 
so  good  that  we  did  not  feel  over-tired.  There 
was  comfort,  too,  in  the  milestones  with  the 
distance  plainly  marked  in  kilometros — from  our 
destination  on  the  side  approached,  from  Amore- 
bieta  on  the  side  fronting  the  road,  and  on  the 
further  side,  from  Bilbao — and  the  short  length 
of  a  kilometre  is  encouraging.  When  we  had 
overcome  the  rise  and  were  in  sight  of  the  long 
gradual  descent  to  Guernica  we  lay  down  under 
the  shade  of  walnut  trees,  with  the  fruit  tantalis- 
ingly  unripe,  to  smoke  cigarettes.  A  railway 
viaduct  spanned  the  road  here,  and  we  watched 


ON    THE   ROAD  87 

a  goods  train,  with  the  guard  perched  on  a  little 
high  seat,  slowly  crossing  it.  Close  by  was  a 
typical  Basque  farm ;  the  whitewashed  house 
with  a  low-pitched  roof  of  red  tiles  weighted 
with  stones,  unglazed  openings  of  a  velvety  rich- 
ness of  dark  under  the  broad  eaves,  and  a  wide 
portal  overhung  by  a  rude  balcony  with  a  trail- 
ing vine  and  a  splash  of  carnations  against  the 
white  wall.  The  land  about  it  was  cultivated 
to  extremity.  The  principal  crop  was  maize, 
but,  as  if  that  were  not  enough,  every  fourth 
or  fifth  stout  green  stem  gave  support  to  a 
climbing  bean,  and  its  broad  leaves  provided  a 
cool  shadow  for  beet.  This  dependence  of  two 
secondary  crops  on  that  which  is  the  staff  of 
life  in  this  neighbourhood  is  as  beautiful  as  it 
is  practical. 

About  four  kilometros  from  Guernica,  on  a 
little  bridge,  there  is  a  cross  and  tablet  with  the 
inscription : 

<(  ACQUI  MURIO  CALISTO  GOICOECHEA,  EL  DIA  8  DE  AGOSTO 
DE  1880,  ALOSI  9  ANOS  DEEDAD.     R.C.P." 

(Here  died  Calisto  Goicoechea,  on  the  8th  day  of  August 
1880,  in  the  ninth  year  of  his  age.     R.I. P.) 

We  asked  a  passing  youth  the  meaning  of 
the  inscription  and  he  told  us  the  child  was 
killed  by  being  thrown  from  a  cart.  This  simple 
and  yet  so  graceful  commemoration  of  the  dead 
is  a  small  instance  of  that  unconscious  and  un- 
questioned unity  of  social  and  spiritual  life,  of 


88  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

the  visible  and  the  invisible,  which  gives  to  the 
Basque  people  their  principal  charm.  From  one 
Englishman  and  another  we  heard  dismal  stories 
about  the  heavy  toll  which  the  Catholic  Church 
takes  of  the  hard-working  peasantry  of  the  Basque 
provinces,  but  I  can't  help  feeling  that  any 
system  of  religion  which  succeeds  in  making  the 
lives  of  its  adherents  so  cheerfully  consistent 
must  be  right  for  them.  The  effect  is  of  a 
broad-based  humanity  which  comes  before  any 
virtue  or  any  special  claim  of  family  or  friend- 
ship. It  may  be  that  people  are  instinctively 
kinder  to  foreigners  than  they  are  to  strangers 
of  their  own  race,  and  something  no  doubt  is 
due  to  the  emphasised  relations,  the  forced  value 
to  common  courtesies,  which  are  caused  by 
imperfect  acquaintance  with  the  language  and 
customs  of  another  country,  but  never  at  home 
have  I  felt  the  same  confident  nearness  to  the 
mass  of  my  fellow-creatures. 

Just  as  we  were  passing  a  solemn  round- 
headed  pine-tree  which  sentinelled  the  approach 
to  Guernica,  a  thunderstorm  broke  in  the  hills 
and  we  had  to  run  for  shelter.  I  received  a 
rapid  impression  of  a  church  set  on  a  high  hill, 
a  street  with  the  sober  dignity  of  an  English 
provincial  town,  and  a  little  tree- planted  and 
arcaded  Paseo. 

At  first  we  thought  that  we  were  not  going 
to  like  the  landlady  of  the  Fonda  to  which  we 
had  been  recommended.  She  was  a  stout,  fair, 


GUERNICA  89 

middle-aged  woman  with  a  manner  which  seemed 
both  grasping  and  domineering,  and  the  apolo- 
getic intervention  of  a  melancholy,  dark  young 
man,  who  was  apparently  related  to  her,  threw 
a  discouraging  light  on  her  character.  But  after- 
wards we  found  that  "her  bark  was  worse  than 
her  bite,"  as  the  saying  is,  and  that  her  first 
attempt  at  extortion  was  merely  a  matter  of 
principle.  Bargaining  concluded,  we  were  shown 
upstairs  to  a  very  small  double-bedded  room,  one 
of  several  opening  off  a  central  apartment.  The 
patterned  brown  and  yellow  wall-paper  of  this 
latter  being  continuous  over  the  doors  of  the 
bedrooms,  made  it  a  chamber  of  surprises. 

In  the  interval  between  the  clearing  of  the 
storm  and  dinner  we  walked  round  the  town, 
which  had  a  little  the  effect  of  taking  itself 
seriously  as  a  local  centre  of  enlightenment.  I 
have  never  been  to  Stratford-on-Avon,  but  I 
should  imagine  it  must  be  rather  like  Guernica. 
The  people,  too,  had  a  subtle  air,  difficult  to 
illustrate  in  detail,  of  living  up  to  some  tradition. 

There  is  a  very  good  reason  for  this,  because 
Guernica,  though  but  a  small  place — in  1901  the 
population  was  only  2200 — is  emotionally  and 
historically  the  Mecca  of  Basque  nationalism. 
Here  grows  the  famous  "  Tree  of  Guernica " 
which,  from  time  immemorial  the  meeting-place 
of  the  Lords  of  Biscay  and  still  of  the  senators, 
is  represented  on  the  arms  of  the  province  and 
commemorated  by  its  national  anthem.  The 


90  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

town  stands  on  the  slope  of  a  hill  above  the 
small  river  Mundaca,  which  finds  the  sea  nine 
miles  to  the  north  at  a  village  bearing  its 
name. 

On  our  return  to  the  Fonda  we  found  an 
interesting  little  group  assembled  in  the  comfort- 
less and  rather  dirty  comedor,  or  dining-room. 
The  melancholy,  dark  young  man,  whom  we 
presently  understood  to  be  the  newly  widowed 
son-in-law  of  the  landlady,  was  there  with  his 
only  child,  a  little  girl  of  about  four.  He  was 
in  intimate  conversation  with  a  broad-shouldered, 
spectacled,  middle-aged  man,  unlike  the  majority 
of  his  countrymen  a  little  bald,  with  a  solid- 
looking  head  and  a  brown  moustache.  He  looked 
the  born  or  abstract  Uncle — who  is  not  neces- 
sarily the  brother  of  a  parent — and  so,  until  we 
learned  his  real  name  and  enjoyed  his  friendship, 
we  christened  him.  There  were  also  three  or 
four  other  men  obviously  unconnected  by  blood 
or  sympathy  with  the  central  figures  of  the 
group. 

"We  sat  down  to  table  together  and  were 
presently  attempting  a  fragmentary  conversation. 
Fragmentary  it  might  have  remained  but  for  a 
ghastly  breach  of  manners  on  our  part  which  I  do 
not  now  regret,  because  it  showed  us  the  essential 
good-breeding  of  our  companions.  Hitherto  in 
places  where  we  had  dined,  each  dish  was  brought 
into  the  room  divided  into  two  portions — one  for 
each  side  of  the  table.  I  don't  quite  know  how 


AN   EMBARRASSING   MOMENT      91 

it  happened — there  were  certainly  two  serving- 
maids  in  the  room  at  the  time — but  of  a  certain 
grilled  meat,  apparently  divided  into  separate 
helpings,  James  and  I,  being  the  last  on  our  side 
of  the  table,  took  as  we  thought  moderately  and 
left  two  helpings  on  the  dish.  The  maid,  how- 
ever, passed  round  the  head  of  the  table  and  at 
a  sudden  break  in  the  conversation  we  looked 
up  to  observe  with  horror  that  the  dish  was 
meant  to  go  all  the  way  round.  There  was 
frankly  not  enough,  and  it  was  evident  from  the 
gestures  of  the  serving-maid  that  there  was  no 
more  in  the  kitchen.  I  don't  think  I  ever  felt 
more  uncomfortable  in  my  life.  The  silence 
lasted  for  ten  awful  seconds  and  then,  with  a 
tact  which  brought  the  tears  into  my  eyes,  our 
fellow-guests  recovered  themselves,  and  leaning 
forward  as  if  to  include  us  in  a  physical  drawing 
together,  began  to  talk  all  at  once  with  a  dozen 
pleasant  inquiries  about  England  and  our  ex- 
periences of  their  country.  It  was  quite  evident 
that  for  the  moment  they  had  been  shocked,  but 
now  their  one  concern  was  to  make  us  forget 
all  about  it.  The  thing  couldn't  have  been  done 
better  at  the  table  of  a  duchess. 

A  friendly  atmosphere  being  so  prettily  estab- 
lished, we  began  to  see  that  the  really  important 
person  in  the  room  was  the  little  girl  who  sat 
opposite  to  us.  She  was  one  of  the  naughtiest 
and  most  self-willed  little  monkeys  I  have  ever 
met,  but  she  was  irresistible.  Piquant  rather  than 


92  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

pretty,  with  pale  cheeks,  heavy  eyes,  and  a  languid 
mouth,  she  might  have  come  out  of  a  picture  by 
Velazquez.  For  some  time  she  had  been  making 
eyes  at  us,  and  we  presently  plucked  up  courage 
to  address  her.  Crumbling  her  bread  and  without 
looking  at  us,  she  responded  with  the  sly  dignity 
of  a  finished  coquette.  One  of  us  happened  to 
speak  to  or  of  her  as  "  nina  "  (little  one). 

"  My  name,"  she  said,  raising  her  eyes  for  a 
moment,  "  is  not  nina.  It  is  Maria  Teresa." 

As  if  to  give  us  time  to  fulfil  the  obvious 
courtesy  of  the  occasion  she  waited  for  a  few 
seconds,  and  then  said  with  languid  interest  and 
a  slight  elevation  of  her  brows  : 

"  And  what  are  your  names  ? " 

We  told  her,  and  for  the  rest  of  our  stay  in 
Guernica  we  were  known  as  Don  Jaime  and  Don 
Carlos.  A  little  pettishly,  as  if  reminding  him  of 
an  oversight,  Maria  Teresa  asked  her  father  for 
wine.  When  her  glass  was  filled  we  toasted  her 
"  Salud ! "  With  the  most  perfect  gravity  she 
held  up  her  glass  in  her  little  trembling  hand  and 
responded,  "  Salud  !  "  It  was  all  wrong,  of  course ; 
she  was  obviously  suffering  from  improper  food, 
she  ought  to  have  been  in  bed  two  hours  ago,  and 
her  father  was  her  foolishly  abject  slave ;  but,  as 
I  said,  she  was  irresistible.  Speaking  of  her  father, 
by  the  way,  it  was  quite  evident  from  his  and  his 
friend  the  Uncle's  manner  with  the  serving-maids 
if  anything  went  wrong  during  the  meal,  that  the 
whole  household  was  in  deadly  terror  of  the  mother- 


THE    CLUB  93 

in-law,  whose  voice  could  be  heard  scolding  in  the 
kitchen. 

During  the  meal  a  little  incident  happened  which 
illustrated  the  zeal  for  education  in  these  provinces. 
A  boy  selling  newspapers  came  into  the  room  and 
seemed  unwilling  to  accept  our  refusal  to  buy  an 
evening  journal.  Somebody  across  the  table  said 
chaffingly  to  him : 

"  But  they  wouldn't  be  able  to  read  it." 

"  What ! "  he  cried,  turning  round  in  amaze- 
ment, "  Basques,  and  can't  read  ! " 

For  the  sake  of  variety  we  decided  to  drink  our 
coffee  in  another  place,  and  not  being  immediately 
successful  in  finding  a  cafe,  we  asked  a  tall,  bearded 
gentleman  sitting  in  a  doorway  if  there  was  not 
one  in  Guernica. 

"  Cafe,  ah,  cafe"  he  said  thoughtfully. 

Thinking  that  perhaps  he  had  not  understood 
me,  I  repeated  the  question  more  clearly : 

"  Si,  senor — cafe"  he  said,  nodding  reassuringly, 
and  rising.  He  bade  us  follow  him,  and  we  passed 
through  several  dark  streets  until  we  came  to  an 
immense  building,  brilliantly  lighted,  with  traces 
of  recent  construction,  in  the  shape  of  planks  and 
heaps  of  mortar  on  the  waste  ground  about  it. 
At  the  foot  of  the  steps  our  guide  waved  his  hand, 
and  we  understood  him  to  say : 

"  Go  straight  in  and  make  yourselves  at  home. 
You  will  find  everything  you  need.  Good  night." 

We  went  in,  although  the  place  looked  very 
much  more  like  a  private  club  than  a  cafe'.  Appa- 


94  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

rently  it  was  both.  A  small  and  dejected-looking 
waiter  met  us  at  the  door  and  conducted  us  to 
a  large,  bare  room,  measuring  about  sixty  feet  by 
thirty,  electrically  lighted,  and  encumbered  with 
scaffolding.  There  were  a  dozen  or  so  little  tables 
in  the  room,  and  at  the  far  end  six  men  sat  over 
some  game  of  picture  cards.  They  greeted  us 
politely,  and  went  on  with  their  game.  We 
ordered  coffee,  and  sat  down  at  one  of  the  little 
tables  wondering  where  we  were.  The  only  de- 
coration on  the  white  walls  were  a  clock  over  the 
fireplace,  and  under  it  a  notice :  "  For  reasons  of 
hygiene  and  urbanity,  gentlemen  are  requested  not 
to  spit  on  the  floor." 

Apparently  the  decorative  proposals,  as  indicated 
by  the  scaffolding,  were  a  matter  of  grave  con- 
sideration, for  during  the  intervals  of  their  game 
the  card-players  tilted  back  their  chairs,  and  with 
gestures  of  proprietorship  discussed  the  ceiling. 

James's  curiosity  getting  the  better  of  him,  he 
left  me  to  explore  the  building.  As  he  did  no 
return  after  ten  minutes  or  so,  I  rang  for  the  de 
jected  waiter  and  asked  him  what  was  to  pay  fo 
the  coffee.  He  said  with  a  slightly  self-consciou 
smile  that  the  other  caballero  had  already  paid  him 
I  thought  it  was  time  to  look  for  James. 

I  found  him  in  the  billiard-room  in  difficult  con 
versation  with  the  gentleman  we  had  called  Uncle 
and  another  wearing  a  workman's  blouse   and   a 
red   moustache.     The   former  introduced  himsel 
as  Don  Jose,  at  our  service,  and  expressed  a  wish 


THE    CLUB  95 

to  take  us  over  the  building.  From  what  we 
could  make  out,  the  place  really  was  a  club,  but 
without  any  formal  system  of  membership,  con- 
ducted on  co-operative  lines.  There  were  reading, 
billiard,  and  card  rooms,  a  place  for  dancing  and 
music,  lavatories,  and  baths.  Also  there  was  a  bar. 
The  scheme  of  the  whole  seemed  extravagantly 
out  of  proportion  to  the  needs  of  the  place,  as  if 
Guernica  were  expected  to  grow.  I  noticed  that 
James  seemed  to  be  suffering  from  suppressed 
amusement,  and  feeling  sure  that  he  wasn't  laugh- 
ing at  our  so  courteous  host,  I  asked  him  the  joke. 
Then  the  embarrassment  of  the  dejected  little 
waiter  was  explained.  Attracted  by  the  sound  of 
singing,  James  had  penetrated  into  the  bar,  where 
he  found  the  little  man  with  one  arm  round  a 
strapping  wench,  holding  aloft  a  small  glass  of 
some  liqueur  in  the  other  hand,  while  he  trolled 
a  spirited  stave.  James  said  that  his  collapse  from 
the  enfranchisement  of  wine,  woman,  and  song 
into  his  pathetic  little  self  was  the  funniest  thing 
he  had  ever  seen. 

Don  Jose  hearing  that  we  intended  to  go  to 
Madrid,  principally  to  see  the  pictures  in  the  Prado 
Museum,  was  acutely  interested.  He  himself, 
he  said,  was  a  collector  of  pictures.  He  had  a 
Rubens  "  about  so  large  " — he  measured  with  his 
hands — a  Murillo,  and  a  painting  by  a  famous 
Italian,  whose  name  he  could  not  for  the  moment 
remember.  We  went  through  all  the  Italian 
painters  we  could  think  of,  from  Giotto  to  Cana- 


96  A    SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

letto,  but  though  Don  Jose  clasped  his  hands  upon 
an  agonised  brow,  we  could  not  hit  upon  the  name. 
However,  would  we  on  the  morrow  do  him  the 
honour  to  look  at  his  little  collection  ?  His  house 
was  in  Guernica,  but  he  was  taking  his  meals  at 
the  Fonda,  because  the  senora  his  wife  was  ill. 
To-morrow  was  Sunday — we  were  going  to  mass  ? 
That  was  good.  Very  well,  then  ;  it  would  be  his 
pleasure  to  meet  us  after  mass  at  the  Fonda,  and 
he  would  first  conduct  us  to  the  Tree  of  Guernica, 
and  afterwards  show  us  the  pictures  at  "  su  casa  de 
Vs.  "  ("  the  house  of  your  graces  "). 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE     OLD     BASQUE PELOTA THE     CASA     DE    JUNTAS 

AND   THE   TEEE   OF  GUERNICA THE  SONG  OF  THE  TREE 

PLYMOUTH    ROCKS A   COLLECTOR    OF    PICTURES DANCING 

RAMON "  AHPAHSTriN  !  " 

II/TORNING  broke  sunny  and  still,  with  a  touch 
of  crispness  in  the  air  and  a  light  mist  hang- 
ing about  the  mulberry  trees  in  the  garden  behind 
the  Fonda.  The  stuttering  of  a  motor  called  me 
to  the  balcony  of  the  sala  which  overlooked  the 
railway  station.  A  motor  omnibus  was  about  to 
start  for  Lequeitio,  a  fishing  village  fourteen  miles 
away,  which  was  to  be  our  destination  on  the 
morrow.  Half-a-dozen  people  in  holiday  clothes, 
the  women  wearing  lace  mantillas,  were  preparing 
to  take  their  seats.  The  military,  always  present 
where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together  in  Spain, 
was  represented  by  a  Foral  in  his  handsome  uni- 
form of  dark  blue  and  scarlet. 

As  we  sat  over  our  cafe  au  lait  and  maize 
bread,  the  brown  and  yellow  wall-paper  of  the 
sala  suddenly  divided,  and  an  old  gentleman  in 
a  grey  flannel  shirt  looked  in.  He  retired,  and 
a  few  minutes  later  the  maid  who  had  brought 
us  our  breakfast  came  up  into  the  sala  carrying  a 
7  97 


98  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

can  of  hot  water,  and,  without  knocking,  plunged 
through  the  wall  into  his  bedroom.  We  heard 
her  startled  but  quite  unembarrassed  "  Hola  !  "  and 
she  came  out  hastily. 

When  we  went  to  mass,  the  blue-green  bells, 
balanced  by  a  heavy  beam  above  the  ear,  were 
being  vigorously  swung  by  two  young  men  in  a 
little  open  gallery  high  up  in  the  church  tower. 
It  is  not  uncommon  in  Spain  to  see  the  bells  make 
a  complete  circle,  so  thoroughly  do  the  ringers 
fling  themselves  into  their  task.  While  waiting 
for  the  service  to  begin,  we  talked  to  a  very  old 
Basque  who  sat  on  a  stone  seat  outside  the  porch 
smoking  a  clay  pipe,  with  a  tiny  bowl  set  nearly 
straight  with  the  stem,  almost  exactly  like  those 
belonging,  I  believe,  to  the  Commonwealth  period, 
which  are  sometimes  dug  up  in  England.  This 
old  man  was  full  of  memories  of  the  Carlist  war, 
in  which  he  had  fought  on  the  losing  side.  He 
had  seen  many  Englishmen  in  Guernica,  but  they 
had  been  amongst  his  enemies  the  Chapelgorris 
(Red-caps)  or  Cristinos.  Perhaps  he  had  killed 
an  Englishman  or  two — "  Quien  sabe?"  Now  he 
was  going  to  mass  with  two  Englishmen  "like 
brothers." 

The  interior  of  the  church  was  so  dark  that  we 
had  to  feel  our  way  carefully  amongst  the  kneeling 
congregation.  There  were  but  three  windows 
two  high  up  in  the  north  and  south  walls,  anc 
one  in  the  west  end.  Eight  massive  cylindrica 
piers  supported  the  roof,  and  the  semi-circular 


PELOTA  99 

apse  was  entirely  filled  up  with  a  retablo  of 
coloured  marbles.  The  mass  music,  in  the  silly 
manner  of  Concone,  was  disappointingly  out  of 
keeping  with  the  gloomy  grandeur  of  the  place. 
Before  the  sermon,  blinds  were  drawn  over  the 
north  and  south  windows,  so  that  the  dim  glow 
of  artificial  light  was  concentrated  on  the  pale, 
impassioned  face  of  the  preacher.  He  spoke  with 
dramatic  intonation  and  gestures,  but  his  utterance 
was  so  rapid  that  I  could  only  pick  up  a  word 
here  and  there.  When  we  streamed  out  into 
the  light  we  were  astonished  at  the  number  of  the 
congregation.  Many  of  the  women  removed  and 
carefully  folded  up  their  mantillas  on  coming  out 
of  church. 

At  the  Fonda  we  received  a  message  from  Don 
Jose  asking  us  to  excuse  him  until  after  almuerzo 
or  luncheon.  Following  the  strains  of  music,  we 
found  the  game  of  Pekta  in  full  swing  in  a  fine 
open  fronton  on  one  side  of  the  little  paseo,  which 
was  closed  in  on  the  other  side  by  the  arcaded 
building  of  the  municipal  schools.  The  band,  in 
scarlet  boinas,  was  perched  upon  some  high 
ground  above  the  fronton.  A  large  number  of 
men,  women,  and  children  in  their  Sunday  best 
were  watching  the  Pelota,  keenly  discussing  points 
of  play,  and  applauding  not  only  the  winners,  but 
the  losers,  in  a  sportsmanlike  manner.  The  move- 
ments of  the  players  as  they  darted  about  the 
asphalt  on  their  alpargata-shod  feet  were  most 
graceful,  and  the  way  they  put  their  whole  bodies 


100  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

into  the  blow  in  driving  the  ball  was  a  perfect 
example  of  the  muscular  co-ordination  which  looks 
so  easy  because  it  is  the  result  of  long  and 
careful  training.  With  the  arm  fully  extended, 
the  weight  of  the  whole  man  was  applied  to  the 
palm  of  the  hand.  One  of  the  players  crossed 
himself  before  entering  upon  each  bout  of  the 
game,  and,  during  the  intervals,  boys  of  twelve 
or  thirte^ :  were  allowed  to  take  their  turn,  to  be 
closely  watched  and  criticised  by  the  spectators^ 

The  children  surrounding  the  band  were  inter- 
ested in  our  conversation,  and  we  presently  had  a 
crowd  of  them  about  us.  At  first — and  this  we 
found  to  be  the  usual  classification  of  foreigners 
—they  took  us  to  be  Frenchmen,  and  some  little 
boys  were  disposed  to  remind  us  of  old  hostilities. 
But  a  slim  girl  of  thirteen  or  fourteen,  in  a  red- 
spotted  cotton  gown,  thrust  herself  forward  and 
said : 

"  No,  they  are  English." 

"Well  then,"  said  the  boys  in  effect,  "they 
are  heretics,  anyhow." 

"Chito ! "  ("Shut  up!")  said  the  girl, with  a  digni- 
fied wave  of  the  hand  ;  "  I  saw  them  at  mass  this 
morning." 

It  was  as  if  she  had  formally  adopted  us. 
During  the  rest  of  the  day,  when  we  saw  her 
at  intervals,  she  kept  a  jealous  eye  upon  our  move- 
ments, and  other  children  approached  us  only  with 
her  permission.  She  was  very  anxious  to  learn  a 
few  words  of  English,  and  would  seize  hold  of  us 


THE   TREE   OF   GUERNICA        101 

in  a  perfectly  unembarrassed  way  to  call  our  att£h- 
tion  to  something  of  which  she  wanted  to  know 
the  English  name.  As  a  general  rule,  in  the  parts 
of  Spain  we  visited  we  found  the  girls  more  in- 
telligent and  more  polite  than  the  boys.  Girls  of 
from  ten  to  thirteen,  corresponding  to  the  brighter 
pupils  of  our  national  schools,  were  generally  the 
best  persons  to  apply  to  for  information  or  direc- 
tion. The  difference  that  another  year  ^  so  made 
in  their  demeanour  was  astonishing ;  at  fifteen  or 
sixteen  they  were  creatures  of  a  most  delicate 
reserve. 

After  luncheon,  when  Maria  Teresa  trusted  that 
she  would  meet  us  later  on  at  the  dancing  in  the 
Paseo,  we  set  off  with  Don  Jose  to  visit  "  el  Roble 
Santo"  ("the  Holy  Oak"). 

"  a  cuya  sombra  entre  infanzones  fieros 
reyes  juraban  populares  Fueros." 

("  In  whose  shade,  among  fierce  nobles,  Kings 
affirmed  the  popular  laws.") 

The  present  Tree  of  Guernica  grows  in  the 
paved  courtyard  of  the  Casa  de  Juntas  or 
House  of  Assembly.  Don  Jose'  explained  that 
this  is  the  "  son  "  of  the  original  Tree,  destroyed 
by  the  French  in  1794,  which  was  very  old 
even  in  1334.  The  venerable  trunk  is  enclosed 
in  a  glass  tower  behind  the  little  Corinthian 
temple,  which  contains  seven  seats  for  the 
Basque  senators  who  meet  here  every  two  years 
on  July  1st.  A  flourishing  family  of  "grand- 


102  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

sons  "  is  already  growing  up  in  a  carefully  railed-in 
border  at  the  back  of  the  building. 
-j~  The  reverence  of  the  Basques  for  their  Tree  is 
something  deeper  and  more  vital  than  a  merely 
sentimental  regard  for  a  picturesque  tradition. 
Directly  we  came  in  sight  of  the  oak  Don  Jose 
uncovered  his  head,  and  before  we  entered  the 
Casa  de  Juntas  he  asked  us  to  behave  "as  if  we 
were  in  church."  Apparently  this  was  not  an 
hour  at  which  the  public  were  ordinarily  admitted, 
for  there  was  a  little  consultation  between  Don 
Jos£  and  the  grave  uniformed  caretaker  before  we 
were  allowed  to  go  in.  The  Senate,  as  I  suppose 
it  should  be  called,  is  a  room  of  moderate  size,  with 
an  altar  and  seats  for  the  deputies  arranged  in  a 
circle.  The  walls  are  decorated  with  twenty-six 
portraits  of  the  Senores  or  Lords  of  Biscay,  from 
the  ninth  to  the  fifteenth  century,  and  a  picture 
representing  the  ratification  of  the  Fueros  under 
the  tree  by  Ferdinand  V.  of  Castile. 

The  caretaker  presented  us  with  a  little 
pamphlet  containing  biographical  notes  of  the 
Lords  of  Biscay,  and  also  with  two  leaves  of  the 
tree  with  the  arms  of  the  province — an  oak  tree 
with  two  wolves — picked  out  upon  them  by 
the  removal  of  the  green  substance  from  the 
veining. 

A  pungent  little  appendix  to  the  pamphlet 
says  that  "the  incorporation  of  the  Lordship  of 
Biscay  with  the  Crown  of  Castile  was  neither  by 
right  of  conquest  nor  by  the  abdication  of  the 


THE   CASA   DE   JUNTAS  103 

Biscay ans,    but   by  simple   and   natural   right   of 
succession." 

Don  Tello,  the  twenty-fifth  Lord  of  Biscay, 
dying  in  1370  without  issue,  the  Lordship  passed 
to  Dona  Juana  Manuel,  wife  of  King  Enrique  II. 
of  Castile,  and  was  transmitted  to  their  eldest  son, 
Don  Juan,  who  succeeded  to  his  father's  throne, 
thus  becoming  King  of  Castile  and  Leon  and  Lord 
of  Biscay.  Thereafter  the  Lordship  was  inherited 
by  the  reigning  Spanish  monarch.  The  appendix 
goes  on  to  say  that  the  Biscayans  were  left  "in 
full  enjoyment  and  possession  of  all  their  liberties 
and  immunities,  and  if  ultimately  they  have  been 
deprived  of  these  it  has  been  solely  by  reason  of 
forced 

The  last  words,  "razon  de  la  fuerza"  are 
significantly  italicised  in  the  original.  Quite  in 
keeping  with  the  stubborn  sentiment  of  the 
appendix,  the  atmosphere  of  the  Casa  de  Juntas 
and  the  manner  of  Don  Jose',  and  the  grave  care- 
taker, indicated  a  dignified  submission  to  neces- 
sity with  a  persistent  hope  for  the  time  when, 
as  the  appendix  adds  with  a  pathetically  cheer- 
ful play  upon  words,  "  the  force  of  reason  "  may 
prevail. 

It  is  impossible  for  a  stranger  to  judge  what 
practical  disadvantages  the  Basques  suffer  from  the 
result  of  the  Carlist  risings,  that  is,  the  loss  of 
their  Fueros.  Apparently,  the  most  valued  of 
these  "  liberties  and  immunities "  was  freedom 
from  the  Quinta  or  conscription.  At  present  the 


104 


A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 


only  special  privileges  which  they,  as  distinguished 
from  the  rest  of  Spain,  enjoy,  are  immunity  from 
income  tax  and  stamps  on  bills. 

Don  Jose  told  us  a  story  which  illustrates  the 
passionate  feeling  of  racial  difference  which  persists 
in  the  Basque  provinces.  A  man  before  justice, 
whether  as  prisoner  or  witness  I  did  not  gather, 
was  asked  to  state  his  nationality.  "  I  am  a 
Basque,"  he  said.  He  was  asked  the  question  a 
second  time,  and  again  said,  "  I  am  a  Basque."  At 
a  third  asking  he  condescended  to  explain,  "  I  am 
a  Basque  first;  afterwards  I  am  a  Spaniard." 

As  we  came  away  from  the  Casa  de  Juntas  we 
saw  a  woman  lifting  up  her  little  son  to  salute 
the  Tree. 

•^  There  are  not  many  remains  of  Basque  litera- 
ture, but  the  words  and  music,  the  latter  frequently 
in  f-  time,  of  a  few  folk-songs  and  dances  may 
still  be  obtained.  For  the  benefit  of  musical 
readers,  the  Basque  national  anthem,  "  Guernicaco 
Arbola"  ("  Tree  of  Guernica"),  is  printed  below. 


Guer-ui  -  ca-co    ar  -  bo  -  la,    Da  be-dein-ca  -  tu  -  ba. 


r\      "  ~~ — — '  w 


Eus-cal-duneii  ar  -  te —     an  Gutz-tiz  mai-ta  -  tu  -  ba. 


THE  SONG  OF  THE  TREE   105 


E-man-da  za  -  bal  -  za —     zu  Mun-du  -  an  fru  -  tu  -  ba. 


E-man-da  za  -  bal  -  za —     zu  Mun-du  -an  fru  -tu  -  ba — 


A  -  do  -  ra-tzen  zai  -  tu —     gu     Ar  -  bo  -  la  San  -  tu  -  ba — 
ff  > 


A  -  do  -  ra-tzen  zai  -  tu 


Ar  -  bo  -  la  San  -  tu  -  ba. 


Don  Jose  went  off  to  make  preparation  for  our 
visit  to  his  house  to  see  the  pictures,  and  we  spent 
the  interval  exploring  the  pleasant  streets  of  the 
town,  which  are  planted  with  plane  and  acacia 
trees.  On  the  higher  ground  are  several  large 
mansions  in  walled  gardens.  Besides  the  club, 
Guernica  possesses  a  large  building  for  brine-baths, 
and  a  little  theatre,  and  I  suppose  a  good  many 
people  from  Bilbao  make  holiday  here  during  the 
summer.  Northward  the  railway  line  from  Amore- 
bieta  follows  the  beautiful  valley  of  the  Mundaca 
to  Pedernales. 


106  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

At  the  time  appointed  we  returned  to  the 
Fonda  to  await  a  formal  invitation  from  Don 
Jose.  It  was  brought  by  a  little  girl,  I  think  his 
niece,  named  Antonia,  who  said  that  Don  Josd 
would  be  honoured  by  the  company  of  Don  Jaime 
and  Don  Carlos  at  his  house. 

Antonia  led  us  to  the  end  of  an  unfinished 
street  of  new  villas,  where  we  saw  Don  Jose  in  his 
shirt  sleeves  in  a  little  back  garden  planted  with 
maize  and  beans.  The  child  was  about  to  take  us 
directly  to  him  through  the  palings,  but  he 
signalled  frantically  that  we  were  to  go  round  to 
the  front.  In  a  few  seconds  he  came  through  the 
house  with  his  coat  on,  and  stepping  into  the 
roadway  extended  his  arm  and  said : 

"  Su  casa  de  Vs."  ("  the  house  of  your  graces  "). 

He  then  took  us  through  the  passage  into  the 
garden,  the  near  end  of  which  was  wired  off  into  a 
chicken  run.  With  the  delighted  air  of  one  bring- 
ing compatriots  together  in  a  strange  land,  he 
pointed  to  the  dozen  hens  who  led  their  families 
about  the  enclosure  and  said,  "  Plymouth  Rocks  ! " 
We  expressed  our  pleasure  at  meeting  the  feathered 
ladies  of  our  nation  in  such  flourishing  condition 
and  comfortable  surroundings,  and  prepared  to 
look  at  pictures.  But,  as  James  remarked,  there 
was  no  indecent  hurry  about  that.  After  we  had, 
in  broken  phrases  and  with  illuminating  gestures, 
remarked  the  points  and  character  of  each  indi- 
vidual Plymouth  Rock,  we  turned  to  the  subject 
of  maize  and  the  advisability  of  thinning  it  out. 


PLYMOUTH   ROCKS  107 

Here  the  neighbours,  a  weather-beaten  old  man 
and  woman,  had  to  be  called  in,  and  after  intro- 
duction to  us  over  the  fence  they  gave  their 
opinion  on  the  subject.  As  a  result  Don  Jose 
removed  a  portion  of  the  wire-netting  and,  with 
a  separate  consultation  for  every  stem,  decimated 
the  maize.  During  this  operation  some  of  the 
chicks  escaped  through  the  wire-netting — and  a 
chicken-hunt  in  a  maize-field  is  not  a  matter  of 
moments.  Altogether  we  spent  more  than  an 
hour  in  the  chicken  run.  Don  Jose  was  kindness 
and  courtesy  itself,  but  neither  James  nor  I  was 
particularly  interested  in  poultry,  conversation  was 
difficult,  and  we  were  anxious  not  to  miss  Maria 
Teresa  at  the  dancing.  Moreover  the  afternoon 
was  hot,  we  were  tired,  and  there  was  nowhere  to 
sit  down.  James  tried  a  hencoop,  but  it  gave  way. 
When  at  last  we  thought  we  were  going  to  see  the 
pictures,  Don  Josd  remembered  that  there  was  to 
be  a  charity  performance  at  the  little  theatre  that 
evening  by  the  Sociedad  Santa  Cecilia  in  aid  of  the 
orphans  of  Guernica.  The  performance  did  not 
sound  exciting,  but  we  could  hardly  refuse  Don 
Jose's  offer  to  procure  us  tickets.  So  a  boy  was 
called  and  given  two  pesetas  to  get  them.  When 
the  boy  returned  we  asked  Don  Jose  if  we  might 
not  be  permitted  to  pay  for  the  tickets.  At  first 
he  dismissed  the  idea,  but  we  gathered  that  this 
was  only  a  piece  of  etiquette,  and  when  we  re- 
peated the  request  indoors  he  took  the  money 
without  any  protest. 


108  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

Seeing  the  pictures  was  not  a  little  embarras- 
sing. Most  of  Don  Jose's  collection  was,  frankly, 
rubbish — bad  copies  of  third-rate  painters  of  "  altar- 
pieces,"  Virgins  and  martyrs  in  forced  attitudes 
and  violent  light  and  shade.  Under  the  circum- 
stances, however,  it  was  impossible  to  be  honest, 
and  we  racked  our  brains  to  find  words  to  satisfy 
Don  Jose's  enthusiasm.  He  was  evidently  a  sin- 
cere lover  of  pictures,  but  the  victim  of  every  form 
of  imposture.  For  example,  he  described  as  "  very 
early  Spanish"  a  Virgin  and  Child  that  was  ob- 
viously a  modern  Russian  "  Icon,"  brought,  I 
suppose,  by  some  sailor  to  Bilbao.  The  painting 
by  a  "famous  Italian,"  whose  name  Don  Jose 
could  not  remember,  turned  out  to  be  an  alleged 
Tintoretto,  but  even  to  our  untrained  eyes  it  was 
a  clumsy  forgery.  Here  and  there  among  the 
pictures,  which  were  in  a  large  unfurnished  room, 
some  hanging  on  the  walls,  others  piled  upon  the 
floor,  was  one  that  was  at  least  interesting.  There 
was,  for  example,  a  quite  beautiful  "  Nativity  "  of 
the  early  Flemish  school,  probably  a  good  copy. 
We  began  to  wonder  when  we  were  to  see  the  spe- 
cial treasures,  the  Rubens  and  the  Murillo.  After 
passing  through  several  bedrooms,  each  with  bare 
floor,  a  high-piled  and  elaborately  carved  bedstead 
and  a  massive  wardrobe,  we  came  to  one  which 
Don  Jose  entered  with  an  air  of  almost  reverence. 
Taking  a  small  picture  from  a  bracket  he  placed  it 
carefully  in  my  hands,  and,  putting  his  finger  mis- 
chievously to  the  side  of  his  nose,  invited  me  to 


A   COLLECTOR   OF   PICTURES     109 

guess  the  painter.  By  a  simple  process  of  elimi- 
nation rather  than  judgment — since  it  was  obviously 
not  a  Murillo — I  said  "  Rubens,"  and  he  patted  me 
delightedly  on  the  shoulder.  The  picture,  which 
was  about  twelve  inches  by  eight  in  size,  repre- 
sented the  return  of  Ulysses  to  a  far  from  grief- 
worn  Penelope  under  a  scalloped  awning,  and, 
judging  from  the  flesh  painting,  it  may  very  well 
have  been  a  genuine  Rubens.  Anyhow,  Don  Jose 
said  that  he  was  sure  of  it.  After  we  had  looked 
at  two  or  three  pictures  hanging  on  the  walls,  in- 
cluding a  Murillo,  a  "  Mater  Dolorosa  "  which  Don 
Jose  acknowledged  to  be  doubtful,  he  went  to  a 
beautifully  carved  cabinet  in  a  corner  of  the  room 
and  told  us  to  prepare  ourselves.  Then  he  un- 
locked the  folding  doors  of  the  cabinet,  stepped 
back  a  pace,  and  rapturously  kissed  the  tips  of  his 
fingers  to  the  picture  exposed.  This  represented 
the  Infant  Saviour  and  St.  John  with  the  Lamb. 
I  am  not  competent  to  say  if  it  was  genuine,  but  I 
understood  that  Don  Jose  had  taken  pains  to  have 
its  authenticity  proved.  The  subject  was  a  favour- 
ite one  of  Murillo's,  and  certainly  this  was  a  very 
charming  piece  of  work,  though  Murillo  is  not  a 
painter  who  excites  my  extravagant  admiration. 
Much  more  charming  than  the  picture  was  Don 
Jose's  delight  in  it,  which  more  than  made  up  for 
the  rather  tedious  ordeal  of  admiring  Plymouth 
Rocks  and  looking  at  his  other  treasures.  The 
intrinsic,  or  even  the  artistic  value  of  anything 
that  makes  a  man  so  genuinely  happy  as  Don  Jose 


110  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

was  over  his  collection  of  doubtful  masters,  seems 
to  me  a  matter  of  very  little  consequence. 

Don  Jose  apologised  for  being  unable,  on  ac- 
count of  his  wife's  illness,  to  entertain  us  at  his 
house,  but  I  don't  think  I  am  doing  him  an  in- 
justice in  saying  that  his  main  object  in  inviting 
us  there  was  to  get  us  to  admire  his  pictures.  I 
hope  and  I  believe  that  we  rose  to  the  occasion. 
When  we  took  leave,  he  asked  me  if  I  would  write 
about  his  collection  in  "  the  Catholic  newspapers." 
I  was  obliged  to  "  hedge  " ;  but  if,  as  he  suggested, 
any  of  my  readers  who  may  happen  to  visit  Guer- 
nica would  like  to  look  at  his  pictures,  I  shall  be 
happy  to  give  them  his  full  name  and  address. 
They  will,  at  least,  enjoy  the  society  of  one  of  the 
kindest  and  simplest  of  men. 

When  we  reached  the  Paseo  the  municipal 
band  was  playing  in  a  little  kiosk  among  the 
magnolia  trees  at  the  end  of  the  fronton,  where  a 
desultory  Pelota  of  small  boys  was  encroached  upon 
by  the  dancers.  A  slow  waltz  seemed  to  be  the 
popular  measure.  The  behaviour  of  the  young 
people  was  extremely  decorous.  The  men  stood 
face  to  face  with  their  partners,  at  a  respectful 
distance,  touching  their  waists  only  with  the  tips 
of  their  fingers.  In  the  majority  of  cases,  how- 
ever, girls  danced  with  girls ;  in  every  open  space 
upon  the  asphalted  walks  of  the  Paseo  two  or  thi 
couples  were  dreamily  revolving.  I  am  tempted 
to  quote  the  principal  theme  of  one  of  the  waltzes, 
not  because  it  is  characteristic  of  the  country — i1 


DANCING 


111 


may  be  English  for  all  I  know — but  because  the 
syncopated  rhythm  recalls  for  me  with  peculiar 
intensity  the  hesitating  grace  of  the  girls'  move- 
ments. 


A  number  of  men,  women,  and  children  walked 
soberly  but  happily  in  an  endless  chain  up  and 
down  the  arcade  under  the  schools  and  on  the 
walks  left  free  by  the  dancers.  Many  of  the 
women  wore  white  dresses,  and  the  greater  num- 
ber were  bare-headed,  though  some  of  them  had 
lace  mantillas  and  a  few  Parisian-looking  hats. 
Nearly  every  girl  had  a  red  rose  or  a  carnation  in 
her  hair,  at  her  breast,  or  in  her  mouth.  Their 
softly  shod  feet — for  they  all  wore  alpargatas — fell 
in  time  with  the  music,  and  indeed  the  distinction 
between  walking  and  dancing  was  so  little  marked 
that  every  now  and  then  two  girls  would  link  and 
drift  revolving  out  of  the  procession  without  any 
break  in  its  movement,  as  if  flowers  had  fallen  from 
a  garland. 

We  soon  saw  Maria  Teresa  walking  with  a 
companion  but  little  older  than  herself.  In  an 
outstanding  muslin  skirt  she  looked  more  like  a 


112  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

Velazquez  than  ever — indeed  she  might  have  been 
the  Princess  Margarita  stepped  down  out  of  "  Las 
Meninas."  She  bowed  to  us  with  smiling  con- 
descension, but  it  was  evident  that  mere  hotel 
acquaintances  were  not  to  be  encouraged  with 
undue  familiarity  at  the  fashionable  promenade  in 
the  Paseo  on  a  Sunday  afternoon.  After  she  had 
passed,  however,  she  looked  back  slyly  over  her 
shoulder,  and  we  saw  her  tap  her  companion  with 
her  little  fan  and  tell  her  who  we  were.  Our 
foreign  speech  and  appearance  attracted  but  little 
attention  from  the  people.  The  popular  hero  of 
the  afternoon  was  a  young  negro,  a  boy  of  about 
sixteen,  in  a  naval  uniform.  He  was  never  with- 
out a  girl  on  either  side,  a  little,  I  think,  to  James's 
annoyance. 

At  intervals  the  place  of  the  municipal  band 
was  taken  by  three  Basque  musicians  with  dulsinyas 
and  tamborils  who  played  the  national  dance — the 
Zortzico,  I  think  it  is  called.  This,  which  we  saw 
danced  only  by  girls  in  sets  of  four  couples,  con- 
sists of  two  movements  or  figures  with  a  break 
between.  The  first  is  a  sidling,  swaying  measure 
with  balanced  arms,  and  the  second  something  like 
a  Scotch  reel.  Both  music  and  movements  have 
an  oddly  Oriental  character,  and  indeed  the  instru- 
ments, the  pipe  and  the  drum,  are  very  similar 
in  appearance  to  those  I  have  seen  in  pictures  of 
Nautch-dancing  and  snake-charming. 

Asuncion,  our  slim  sponsor  of  the  morning,  was 
dancing  in  the  set  we  watched  with  a  girl  a  little 


DANCING  113 

older  than  herself  with  glorious  red  hair.  When 
the  dance  was  over,  Asuncion  came  up  to  us  and 
produced  a  mixed  collection  of  small  articles — a 
brooch,  a  thimble,  a  ring,  a  handkerchief,  a  ball, 
and  so  on — from  her  pocket,  with  an  eager  "  Como 
se  llama  ?  "  with  each,  to  learn  their  English  names. 
I  don't  think  Asuncion  would  have  minded  if  one 
of  us  had  asked  her  for  the  next  waltz,  but  so  few 
men  seemed  to  be  dancing  that  we  thought  it 
might  not  be  good  manners  for  strangers  to  do  so. 

Certainly  the  Basque  villagers  have  solved  the 
problem  of  a  "  pleasant  Sunday  "in  a  most  satis- 
?actory  manner.  Mass  and  Pelota  in  the  morning 
and  dancing  in  the  afternoon.  The  whole  feeling 
of  the  thing  gains  in  charm  from  the  amusements 
being  pursued  in  the  very  shadow  of  the  church. 
In  many  places,  though  not  at  Guernica,  the  high 
wall  of  the  fronton  is  actually  continuous  with 
that  of  the  church,  as  if  the  latter  gave  material  as 
well  as  moral  support  to  the  games  of  the  people. 

An  amusing  little  incident  happened  at  dinner. 
Besides  Don  Jose,  Maria  Teresa  and  her  father, 
there  were  present  several  strangers,  including  two 
young  men,  apparently  "trippers,"  who,  though 
civil  enough,  were  less  delicately  considerate  of 
our  feelings  in  the  matter  of  curiosity  than  the 
rest  of  our  companions.  Not  knowing  how  long 
the  dancing  was  kept  up,  we  were  anxious  to  get 
back  to  the  Paseo,  and  decided  to  cut  some  of  the 
meal.  It  so  happened  that  we  rose  just  after  one 

of  the  young  men  had  made  some  remark  to  the 

8 


114  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

other  about  us.  Our  friends  looked  acutely  un- 
comfortable, and  then  it  occurred  to  us  that  they 
thought  we  had  taken  offence.  We  tried  to  re- 
assure them,  but  it  was  no  use  and  we  had  to  sit 
down  again.  After  a  decent  interval  we  again 
rose,  but  a  murmur  went  round  the  table,  and  Don 
Jose,  putting  his  finger  to  the  side  of  his  nose,  whis- 
pered impressively,  "Presets!"  ("Strawberries!") 
quite  in  the  manner  of  the  abstract  Uncle.  The 
good  people  were  not  going  to  let  us  miss  the 
strawberries.  And  indeed  when  they  came,  borne 
in  by  a  maid  mischievously  smiling  with  the  air  of 
one  springing  a  surprise,  to  be  eaten  with  wine  and 
sugar,  they  were  quite  worth  waiting  for.  We 
found,  too,  that  we  needn't  have  hurried,  for  the 
Paseo  was  quite  deserted.  On  our  way  to  the 
theatre  we  met  a  very  sleepy  Maria  Teresa  being 
carried  to  bed  on  her  father's  shoulder. 

At  nine  o'clock,  in  the  expectation  of  a  dull 
evening,  we  climbed  a  dark  staircase  and  were 
suddenly  projected  into  a  blaze  of  electric  light, 
the  temperature  of  a  stokehold,  a  babel  of  sound 
and  the  pungent  fumes  of  cigarettes  at  forty-five 
centimes  the  packet. 

When  we  had  recovered  our  senses  a  little,  we 
found  ourselves  in  an  overcrowded  gallery,  not  the 
highest  nor  presumably  the  hottest,  where  frenzied 
hands  and  tongues  endeavoured  to  make  us  feel 
at  home.  A  couple  of  Civil  Guards,  in  their  darl 
blue  and  yellow  uniforms,  good-naturedly  hoist( 
us  over  the  heads  of  the  people,  and  we  finall; 


RAMON  115 

dropped  into  a  seat  between  two  happy,  coatless, 
perspiring  young  men  wearing  the  scarlet  boinas 
of  the  Guernica  Municipal  Band. 

He  on  the  right  was  a  brilliantly  handsome 
youth,  Castilian  rather  than  Basque  in  type,  with 
the  j oiliest  laugh  I  have  ever  heard.  He  at  once 
made  friends  with  us,  told  us  that  his  name  was 
Ramon,  and  that  he  played  the  clarinet,  the 
bombardon,  and  the  guitar,  and  introduced  us  to 
bis  mother,  a  grave  lady  in  a  black  mantilla,  his 
little  sister,  and  a  strapping,  swarthy  young  woman 
not  his  fiancee,  he  assured  us — with  a  carnation 
over  her  left  ear,  flashing  eyes  and  teeth,  and  the 
dark  down  on  the  upper  lip  which  lends  an  at- 
traction rather  than  otherwise  to  the  ladies  of 
Spain.  The  other  young  man,  who  played  the 
saxophone  and  the  piano,  was  a  more  solemn 
person.  He  improved  the  occasion  by  giving  me 
useful  bits  of  information ;  that  Guernica  was  an 
important  market-town,  with  a  present  population 
of  five  thousand,  for  example.  In  a  very  short 
time  we  had  cemented  our  friendship  with  the 
two  bandsmen  by  changing  boinas  with  them  and 
taking  off  our  coats.  Ramon  taught  us  idiomatic 
phrases  to  repeat  to  the  ladies,  whereat  they  hid 
their  faces  in  their  fans  and  shook  with  laughter. 
Down  below  in  the  stalls  of  the  pretty  blue  and 
white  theatre,  where  there  was  a  notice  requesting 
gentlemen  not  to  smoke,  people  glanced  up  indul- 
gently at  our  noisy  corner  of  the  gallery. 

We  had  arrived  in  the  middle  of  a  pianoforte 


116  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

solo,  which  did  not  seriously  inconvenience  the 
conversation  of  the  audience.  Our  modest  ac- 
quaintance with  the  language  did  not  enable  us 
to  understand  much  of  the  farce  which  followed, 
but  apparently  it  had  no  plot.  A  good-tempered 
and  very  red-faced  young  man  wallowed  on  his 
stomach  under  a  pile  of  fleeces  while  persons  in 
extravagant  costumes  came  and  expressed  varied 
but  depreciatory  opinions  about  him.  A  chorus 
of  smartly-dressed  little  boys  wandered  on  the 
stage  or  in  the  wings  or  among  the  audience  as 
their  fancy  led  them. 

It  was  during  the  interval  that  followed  this 
piece  that  Ramon  began  to  ask  the  English  for 
articles  of  clothing  and  personal  adornment. 
James  made  full  use  of  his  unfair  advantage  for 
conversational  openings  in  the  shape  of  the  watch 
at  his  wrist.  What,  for  example,  said  Ramon, 
was  the  English  for  relojt  "  Wautch."  That  was 
funny.  "  Wautch."  It  was  passed  from  mouth 
to  mouth.  They  tasted  it  like  a  new  sweetmeat. 
"  Wautch."  One  saw  pretty  carnation  lips  purse 
and  widen  with  the  unfamiliar  sound,  "  Wautch." 
Oh,  these  droll  English  !  But,  pursued  Ramon, 
supposing  one  wanted  to  say  the  time ;  now,  for 
instance,  what  hour  was  it,  in  English  ? 

"  Half-past  ten,"  said  James  gravely  and  dis- 
tinctly. Ramon  lay  back  and  roared,  while  the 
lady  with  the  flashing  eyes  thumped  him  soundly 
on  his  unprotected  ribs.  "  Ahpahste'n ! "  Oh, 
exquisite !  Regardless  that  a  flute  solo  out  of 


"AHPAHSTEN"  117 

"William  Tell"  had  now  begun,  his  neighbours 
pressed  forward  to  share  the  joke,  and  in  a  few 
moments  they  had  all  got  hold  of  it. 

They  made  it  an  anapaest,  "  Ahpahsten,  ahpah- 
sten, ahpahsten,"  like  the  galloping  of  horses,  em- 
phasising the  final  with  a  clenched  right  hand  on 
the  left  palm ;  they  pronounced  it  syllable  by 
syllable,  "  Ah-pah-sten,"  with  the  meditative  air  of 
hens  drinking  water ;  they  flung  it  at  the  performers 
as  a  cat-call ;  they  cooed  it  into  the  folds  of  man- 
tillas as  a  term  of  endearment. 

We  had  to  repeat  the  phrase  over  and  over 
again.  Girls  lost  their  shyness  and  yearned  upon 
us,  watching  and  mimicking  the  movements  of  our 
lips  with  fascinated  and  fascinating  appreciation. 
Never  in  my  life  have  I  been  so  closely  pressed  by 
so  many  attractive  young  women.  In  an  in- 
credibly short  time  the  phrase  had  infected  the 
whole  gallery,  and  presently  we  saw  the  occupants 
of  the  stalls  beginning  to  lean  and  whisper  like  a 
field  of  corn. 

For  a  time  Ramon's  mother  held  out,  pre- 
senting a  decorous  back  to  her  noisy  neighbours. 
Leaning  excitedly  towards  us,  with  beads  of 
moisture  on  his  young  forehead,  Ramon  asked  the 
English  for  "  madre"  "Mother,  mother"  he  re- 
peated after  us  with  an  intelligent  nod.  "  Bien  ! " 
Rising  in  his  seat  he  bent  over  and  slapped  the 
grave  lady  in  the  back  with  the  single  word 
"  Muthaw ! " 

That  conquered  her.    She  spread  her  fan  with  a 


118  A  SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

quick  movement,  and  bowing  her  head,  shook  with 
hysterical  laughter.  "  Ahpahsten,  Ahpahsten  !  "  she 
murmured  chokingly.  The  performance  went  on, 
a  gramophone  selection  from  "  Poet  and  Peasant " 
followed  a  comic  reading — during  which  Ramon 
whistled  with  his  fingers  and  cried,  "  Mas  alto ! " 
("  Speak  up ! ")  for  all  the  world  like  a  London 
gallery  boy — and  gave  place  to  a  vocal  duet,  but 
"  Ahpahsten  "  held  the  house. 

We  did  our  best  to  keep  order,  to  give  a  polite 
and  intelligent  attention  to  the  stage,  but  it  was 
no  use.  We  were  the  entertainment.  During  the 
beautiful  singing  of  a  part-song  by  the  concorso,  or 
male  chorus,  from  San  Sebastian,  I  saw  the  two 
Civil  Guards  with  outspread  hands  arguing  over 
the  pronunciation  of  the  enchanting  word. 

It  was  long  past  midnight  when  we  were  swept 
down  the  death-trap  staircase  into  the  open  air, 
Our  fame  had  preceded  us.  When  we  went  into 
the  little  cantina  on  the  ground  floor  of  the  theatre 
to  soothe  our  smoke  and  laughter  dried  throats 
with  vermouth  and  soda,  the  stout  lady  behind 
the  bar  murmured  coyly  as  she  gave  us  our 
change : 

"Ahpahsten!  ' 

It  sounded  like  an  assignation. 


CHAPTER  VII 

FAKEWELL    TO    DON    JOS^ A     BASQUE     ST.    IVES THE 

COLLECTOR      OF      CUSTOMS "  AT      YOUK     SERVICE  " THE 

OBSESSION  OF   THE  KNIFE MOSQUITOS  AND  "  SERENOS  " 

THE    HOSPITALITY    OF    "  CARABINEROS  " THE    LITTLE    MAD 

RAILWAY    AGAIN 

rose  at  half -past  six  to  take  advantage  of  the 
cool  of  the  morning.  We  had  nearly  fifteen 
miles  to  walk  to  Lequeitio,  and  for  anything  we 
knew  the  road  might  be  mountainous.  The  people 
at  the  Fonda  evidently  thought  we  were  a  little 
mad  for  not  travelling  by  the  motor  omnibus  which 
makes  the  journey  between  Guernica  and  Lequeitio 
twice  a  day.  It  would  start  in  an  hour,  at  eight 
o'clock,  said  the  maid  who  brought  us  our  coffee. 

Early  as  it  was,  Don  Jose  ran  out  of  his  house 
as  we  passed  to  embrace  us  cordially,  ask  if  we 
were  provided  with  cigarettes,  and  advise  us  not  to 
walk  in  the  sun  after  eleven  o'clock  nor  to  drink 
wine  until  we  had  reached  our  journey's  end.  The 
photograph  facing  this  page  gives  a  good  idea  of 
our  last  view  of  the  little  town  we  left  with  a  pang 
of  regret.  The  splendid  movement  of  the  Basque 
women,  and  the  careful  arrangement  of  their  hair, 


119 


120  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

are  well  illustrated  by  the  figure  of  the  elder  girl 
on  the  right. 

At  a  little  distance  from  Guernica  the  road 
ascends  in  a  series  of  wide  curves,  giving  a  bird's- 
eye  view  of  the  valley  of  the  Mundaca.  Lately, 
another  road  of  easier  gradients  has  been  con- 
structed for  the  motor  omnibus,  but  we  kept  to 
the  hills.  The  surrounding  country  was  much 
wilder  than  that  we  had  passed  through  between 
Amorebieta  and  Guernica,  wooded  on  each  side  of 
the  road  with  oak  and  chestnut.  Farms  were 
comparatively  rare,  but  the  little  fields  of  maize 
and  corn  took  on  a  greater  value  for  their  dark 
setting.  As  we  followed  the  broad,  white  road 
we  refreshed  ourselves  with  delicious  wild  straw- 
berries which  grew  plentifully  in  crevices  of  the 
limestone.  At  intervals  we  met  people  going 
down  to  market  in  Guernica,  groups  of  women 
stepping  out  bravely  with  heavy  baskets  on  their 
heads,  or  a  timber  waggon  drawn  by  a  team  of  oxen, 
blinking  mildly  under  the  crimson  fringe  of  their 
sheepskin-covered  yoke,  as  they  descended  the  hill 
with  a  slow,  swaying  movement.  We  passed 
through  two  or  three  villages,  each  with  its  little 
tiled  parroquia,  or  parish  church,  and  men  and 
women  working  in  the  fields,  reaping  corn,  or 
tilling  the  ground  with  heavy  two-pronged  mat- 
tocks resembling  the  Cornish  "  digger."  Every- 
body we  passed  hailed  us  with  "  Adios  /  "  or 
"  Agur  !  "  and  once,  instead  of  the  native  greeting, 
a  man  startled  us  with  "  Good  morning."  He 


A   BASQUE   ST.    TVES  121 

was  a  ship's  fireman  on  tramp  to  Bilbao.  At  a 
little  lonely  tavern  on  the  farther  side  of  the  hill 
we  rested  and  drank  chacoli.  The  dark  interior, 
with  earthen  floor  and  rude  benches  and  tables, 
was  filled  with  wood  smoke.  A  black  pot  was 
suspended  over  the  fire,  and  a  woman  sat  beside 
the  open  hearth  rocking  a  wooden  cradle  with  her 
foot. 

The  motor  road  rejoins  the  other  at  a  place 
called  "  Tres  Cruces,"  after  three  crosses  by  the 
wayside,  and  not  far  from  Lequeitio  the  omnibus 
passed  us  in  a  cloud  of  dust.  With  the  greater 
part  of  our  walk  behind  us,  we  could  afford  to  smile 
at  the  compassionate  glances  of  the  passengers. 
Presently  we  came  in  sight  of  the  little  fishing  town 
which,  but  for  its  red-tiled  roofs,  bears  a  startling 
resemblance  to  St.  Ives.  To  us,  accustomed  to 
the  unvarying  grey  of  Cornish  villages,  it  looked 
wrong  somehow  to  see  red  roofs  so  near  the  sea. 
As  is  usual  when  approaching  a  place  by  the  sea, 
the  descending  road  split  up  into  lanes  which 
seemed  to  run  hither  and  thither  in  a  sudden 
flurry  of  excitement.  A  boy,  unasked,  politely 
pointed  us  out  a  short  cut  over  a  stony  by-path, 
and  then  we  were  among  narrow  streets  with  a 
cool  air  from  off  the  harbour  and  the  familiar 
sights  and  smells  of  a  fishing  town. 

The  lie  of  the  place  with  regard  to  the  points 
of  the  compass,  the  look  of  the  streets  and  the 
relative  positions  of  the  church  and  the  harbour, 
were  so  absurdly  like  St.  Ives  that  we  amused 


122  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

ourselves  by  pointing  out  the  houses  where  our 
friends  live.  I  suppose  the  truth  is  not  that 
Lequeitio  looks  English  but  that  St.  Ives  looks 
foreign.  Like  St.  Ives,  Lequeitio  has  an  Island 
of  St.  Nicolas — the  patron  saint  of  sailors — but 
here  the  Island  is  really  an  island  and  not  a  penin- 
sula, though  artificially  joined  to  the  mainland  at 
low  tide  by  a  raised  causeway. 

As  if  to  keep  up  the  illusion  of  our  being  at 
home,  the  charming  young  landlord  of  the  Fonda 
de  Beitial,  overlooking  the  harbour,  responded  to 
my  carefully  worded  inquiry  for  rooms  with  :  "  All 
right."  He  had  been  in  England  and  spoke  the 
language  "  not  a  great  deal,"  as  he  said,  but  with 
a  surprising  mastery  of  colloquial  expressions.  His 
house  was  very  full,  he  said,  but  he  would  be  glad 
to  take  us  in  if  we  didn't  mind  a  rather  public 
bedroom.  We  assured  him  that  the  two  beds 
behind  clean  white  curtains  suspended  by  string 
across  the  large  airy  central  sola  were  all  that  we 
desired. 

The  company  at  luncheon  were  of  a  more 
cultivated  and  fashionable  type  than  we  had  yet 
encountered  at  our  public  meals.  There  were  a 
middle-aged  artist,  his  wife,  and  a  grave  young 
man,  his  pupil — very  like  the  serious  type  of  art- 
student  at  home — and  a  family  of  summer  visitors 
from  Bilbao,  consisting  of  papa,  mamma,  two 
children,  and  grandmamma.  The  last  had  a  larger 
appetite  than  any  old  lady  I  have  ever  met.  By 
the  end  of  the  meal — which  included  a  glorious 


A   BASQUE   ST.   IVES  123 

lobster  salad  —  every  standing  dish  of  biscuits, 
olives,  fruit,  and  so  on  had  drifted  to  her  end  of 
the  table,  surrounding  her  like  a  rampart.  Every- 
body except  the  student  was  very  relaxed  and 
informal,  as  if  in  a  seaside  holiday  humour.  The 
painter's  wife,  a  large,  good-looking,  languishing 
lady,  was  negligently  attired  in  a  pink  petticoat 
and  the  frankest  blouse  I  have  ever  seen  worn  in 
the  daytime.  Twice  during  the  meal  she  drifted 
into  her  bedroom,  which  opened  off  the  comedor, 
leaving  the  folding  doors  ajar,  still  further  to  sim- 
plify her  costume,  until  James  began  to  make 
sporting  proposals  as  to  the  extent  of  the  remain- 
der. I  fancied  that  the  grave  student,  who  kept 
his  eyes  on  his  plate  and  left  the  table  before  the 
end  of  the  meal,  a  little  disapproved  of  her,  so 
possibly  her  position  was  less  formal  than  that  of 
a  wife. 

After  a  siesta  behind  the  white  curtains 
of  the  sala  we  went  out  into  the  sunlight  to 
explore  the  town.  The  church  of  Nuestra 
Senora  de  la  Asuncion  is  very  old  and  extremely 
beautiful,  unusually  free  from  jarring  additions, 
with  a  retablo  of  dulled  gold  and  a  tabernacle 
of  the  same  workmanship.  Externally  a  curious 
effect,  like  that  of  banks  of  oars,  is  produced 
by  a  range  of  flying  buttresses  on  each  side  of 
the  nave. 

The  church  is  overlooked  by  a  little  conical 
mount  like  the  Capstone  rock  at  Ilfracombe. 
James  wanted  to  finish  his  siesta  on  the  wall  out- 


124  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

side  the  church,  so  I  made  the  ascent  alone  by  a 
stony  path  encircling  the  mount,  with  "  Stations  of 
the  Cross"  at  intervals,  and  a  Calvary  at  the  summit. 
From  here  I  had  a  splendid  view  of  the  red-roofed 
little  town,  backed  by  the  headland  of  Santa  Cata- 
lina,  which  forms  the  western  arm  of  the  bay. 
Landward  a  fertile  and  partially  wooded  valley 
ran  up  among  the  foot-hills  of  the  Cantabrian 
Mountains.  The  heat  here  reflected  from  the 
stony  ground  was  almost  overpowering,  and 
the  glare  was  made  more  dazzling  to  the  eyes 
by  bright  patches  of  valerian.  Although  it  was 
not  yet  the  middle  of  July,  I  picked  ripe 
sloes. 

On  my  descent  I  found  James  waking  up  to  an 
interested  audience  of  small  boys,  who  afterwards 
did  not  improve  the  foreground  of  a  photograph 
of  the  church  tower.  Graceful  when  uncon- 
scious of  observation,  the  Spanish  boy  becomes 
the  stiffest  creature  imaginable  the  moment  he  is 
aware  of  the  camera.  As  we  made  our  way  among 
the  narrow  streets  we  began  to  see  and  feel  all 
the  subtle  differences  between  Lequeitio  and  the 
familiar  town  to  which  we  had  compared  it ;  the 
rich  carving  under  the  broad  eaves  of  the  tall 
houses,  the  innumerable  balconies  and  the  fulness 
of  colour  in  the  garments  drying  upon  them.  I 
have  never  seen  such  a  quantity  of  "  washing " 
displayed  in  all  my  life ;  the  effect  was  of  the 
preparation  for  some  pageant.  Not  the  least  strik- 
ing difference  between  this  and  any  English  town 


I 


STREET ; LEQUEITIO 


A   BASQUE   ST.    TVES  125 

was  in  the  sharp  contrast  between  the  old  and  the 
new ;  between  the  narrow  crooked  streets  of  crazy 
buildings  with  their  blunt,  irregular  lines,  and  the 
trim  quays,  wide  spaces,  and  clean-cut  masonry 
of  the  harbour.  In  the  most  recently  exploited 
watering-place  in  England  you  do  not  get  a  sudden 
jump  from  the  old  to  the  new;  the  crude  villa 
is  linked  to  the  primitive  cottage  by  a  series  of 
buildings  which  are  merely  old-fashioned  and  in- 
convenient, and  in  practical  matters  there  is  always 
a  slight  hesitation,  as  if  the  authorities,  though 
without  reverence  for  the  past,  had  not  quite  the 
courage  to  accept  the  advantages  of  the  present. 
The  harbours  and  their  appurtenances  of  the  fishing 
towns  I  know  in  England  are  all  a  little  behind 
the  needs  of  the  moment,  as  if  hampered  by  con- 
sideration for  the  lady  amateur  painter  in  water 
colours.  But  when  the  Latin  is  practical  he  is 
very  practical.  Apparently  he  has  never  heard 
of  or  disregards  the  convention  that  comfort  and 
convenience  are  incompatible  with  beauty.  As  a 
small  example,  the  excellent  harbour  of  Lequeitio 
is  brilliantly  lighted  at  night  by  acetylene  lamps, 
"  made  at  Willesden,"  we  observed,  on  tall  iron 
standards.  The  municipal  authorities  discovered 
that  they  were  paying  more  than  they  should  for 
the  electric  light  which  is  used  universally  through- 
out the  north  of  Spain,  so  they  adopted  acetylene  on 
their  own  account  with  a  gain  both  in  cheapness  and 
efficiency.  Yet  in  spite  of,  or,  as  I  prefer  to  believe, 
because  of,  this  fearless  consideration  of  practical 


126  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

needs,  Lequeitio  is  unspoiled;  in  spite  of  the 
piquant  contrast  between  old  and  new,  it  escapes 
the  vulgarity  of  meaningless  "  improvements."  On 
the  other  hand,  I  could  name  a  fishing  town  and 
watering-place  in  England,  with  twice  the  popula- 
tion of  Lequeitio,  which  is  rapidly  being  made 
abominable  by  the  worst  type  of  villa  and  shops, 
but  where  the  launching  of  the  lifeboat  at  a  time  of 
peril  has  been  seriously  hindered  because  the  half- 
dozen  miserable  gas-lamps  of  the  harbour  were 
unlighted. 

^  Lequeitio  has  its  lifeboat  conveniently  housed 
in  a  bright  pavilion  in  the  angle  of  the  outer  arm 
of  the  harbour.  As  we  stood  there  watching  the 
open  lug-sailed  hake  boats,  each  with  a  crew  of 
eight  or  nine  men,  come  in  before  a  light  breeze, 
we  were  accosted  in  polite  but  broken  English 
by  a  dapper  little  man  in  a  linen  suit  and  straw 
hat,  who  was  accompanied  by  three  summer- clad 
children,  two  boys  and  a  girl.  After  some  pre- 
liminary compliments  he  said,  "  I  am  the  Collector 
of  Customs,"  adding  with  a  touch  of  shyness,  as  if 
he  were  not  sure  that  it  was  the  correct  form,  but 
meant  to  risk  it,  "  at  your  service."  He  never 
missed  an  opportunity,  he  said,  of  improving  his 
knowledge  of  our  language,  which  he  was  learning 
from  an  American  gentleman  who  lived  in  Leque- 
itio, and  from  the  Daily  Mail.  Producing  a  folded 
copy  of  the  Paris  edition  of  the  latter  from  his 
pocket,  he  read  out  a  paragraph  about  tariff  reform 
with  a  pronunciation  which  betrayed  the  source  of 


THE   COLLECTOR   OF   CUSTOMS    127 

his  learning.  He  offered  to  take  us  to  that  source, 
but  we  assured  him  that  we  were  very  happy  where 
we  were,  and  in  the  company  of  himself  and  his 
children.  They  were  learning  English,  too,  he  told 
us.  I'm  afraid  his  idea  of  a  useful  education  was 
unfortunately  in  agreement  with  that  of  certain 
people  at  home.  The  little  pale,  fragile  creatures, 
their  dark  eyes  burning  with  intelligence,  were 
stood  in  a  row  and  made  to  repeat  a  list  of  the 
principal  ports  of  England  :  "  London,  Leeverpool, 
Soufampton,  Porrtsmout,  Brreestdl,  Carrdeef,  Ool." 
We  spent  a  very  pleasant  half-hour  with  the 
Collector  of  Customs  and  his  children,  and  when 
we  parted  he  waved  his  hand  and  said,  again  in  the 
shy  tone  of  a  person  determined  to  brave  the  risks 
of  idiom,  "  Until  later." 

When  the  tide  fell  we  crossed  to  the  Island  of 
San  Nicolas  by  a  causeway  like  that  which  joins 
St.  Michael's  Mount  to  Marazion.  The  island  is 
an  irregular  mass  of  granite  with  a  scrub  of  gorse 
and  heath  and  a  variety  of  tiny  wild-rose,  growing 
flat  to  the  ground,  which  I  have  seen  in  Cheshire. 
It  is  found  also,  I  believe,  in  some  parts  of  Scot- 
land. From  here  we  had  a  good  view  of  the 
hills  forming  a  background  to  Lequeitio  and  the 
inviting  cliff  road  which  we  were  to  pursue  on  the 
morrow. 

A  violet  dusk  was  falling  when  we  returned 
to  the  town ;  on  the  red  sands  a  girls'  school  in 
uniform  pink  dresses  danced  a  Zortzico  without 
music.  The  effect  of  their  silent  movements, 


128  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

with  outstretched  waving  arms,  was  very  strange. 
Boys  were  bathing  from  the  steps  of  the  har- 
bour; each  crossed  himself  before  he  dived. 
Later,  we  wandered  about  the  streets  and  quays 
by  moonlight  of  a  peculiar  quality  and  breadth, 
in  which  there  were  no  sharp  contrasts  of  light 
and  shade,  but  rather  a  diffused  luminosity,  as 
if  it  were  given  out  from  within  the  objects 
on  which  it  fell.  The  acacias  on  the  quays 
under  the  tall  acetylene  lamps  flung  exquisite 
wavering  shadows  like  stirring  water.  Lequeitio 
goes  to  bed  early.  At  half-past  nine  there  was 
hardly  a  lighted  window,  and  we  met  less  than  a 
dozen  people  in  the  streets.  Two  youths  and  a 
gigantic  dog,  like  some  hound  of  dreams,  moved 
swiftly  and  silently  along  the  quayside.  Here  and 
there  we  heard  the  quiet  voice  of  a  girl,  unseen 
upon  a  balcony,  answered  by  a  man's  voice  from 
below. 

We  had  a  long  and  interesting  talk  with  the 
landlord  of  the  Fonda  before  we  went  to  bed. 
When  we  asked  him  how  he  liked  England,  he 
said,  "  I  like  the  English  laws."  He  was  a  quick, 
intelligent  young  man  with  a  slightly  worried  ex- 
pression, as  if  he  were  haunted  by  unpleasant 
memories,  and  I  think  he  must  have  had  some 
experience  in  the  past  which  made  him  put  a  high 
value  on  bodily  safety.  He  said  that  Vizcaya  was 
the  best  governed  of  the  three  Basque  provinces, 
adding,  "  You  can  go  out  at  one  o'clock  at  night, 
or  you  can  dance  with  a  girl  without  fear  of  a 


MOSQUITOS   AND   "SERENOS"     129 

knife."  More  than  once  he  spoke  with  relief  of 
security  from  the  knife.  The  Spanish  Government, 
he  said,  appreciates  the  prosperity  of  the  Basque 
provinces,  but  is  always  on  guard  against  the  in- 
dependent spirit  of  their  inhabitants.  A  man  could 
be  put  in  prison  for  talking  here.  The  Basque 
farms  were  small  but  profitable,  and  most  of  the 
farmers  owned  their  land.  That  was  a  good  thing  ; 
he  did  not  like  landlords ;  when  he  improved  his 
house  and  put  in  more  bedrooms  his  landlord  had 
raised  his  rent.  He  was  a  pure  Basque  ;  his  aunt, 
to  whom  he  introduced  us,  could  speak  barely  a 
word  of  Spanish. 

It  was  queer  to  be  awakened  by  a  man  saying 
in  English  that  it  was  six  o'clock.  I  had  slept 
soundly,  but  James  had  suffered  equally  from  the 
mosquitos  and  the  serenos  or  night  watchmen.  In 
his  broken  dreams  they  were  indistinguishable  one 
from  the  other ;  the  mosquitos  chanted  the  hour, 
and  flew  about  with  lanterns  and  staves,  and 
several  times  James  was  prevented  from  killing 
one  by  the  reflection,  just  when  he  had  raised  his 
hand,  that  it  would  be  murder  to  do  so.  The 
matter  was  complicated  by  somebody  having  told 
him  that  you  could  kill  a  man  in  Spain  for  five 
pounds.  More  than  once  during  the  night  he 
counted  his  money,  and  I  have  a  hazy  recollection 
of  hearing  a  resounding  slap,  followed  by  a  sleepy 
and  despairing  murmur,  "There  goes  another  fiver." 

The  morning  was  clear  and  grey  and  chilly, 
with  promise  of  brilliant  sunshine  later  on.  We 

9 


130  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

started  early,  as  we  had  nearly  fourteen  miles  to 
walk  before  noon,  when  we  hoped  to  catch  a  train 
from  Deva  to  Durango.  The  road,  which  follows 
the  coast  to  Deva,  leaves  Lequeitio  by  a  splendid 
bridge  of  a  single  arch.  Before  we  reached  it  we 
passed  a  fine  mansion,  surrounded  by  tall  poplar 
trees.  From  the  stables  a  groom  led  a  horse 
with  a  coronet  worked  in  blue  upon  its  fawn 
covering.  We  were  told  that  the  place  belonged 
to  a  countess,  and  that  several  notable  people  had 
country  houses  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Lequeitio. 
A  few  people  were  bathing  in  the  sea  as  we  crossed 
the  bridge,  and  we  met  a  group  of  bare-footed 
women  walking  into  the  town  with  large,  flat 
baskets  of  laundry  on  their  heads.  A  carabinero 
in  blue  linen  uniform  and  white  shako,  armed  with 
a  rifle,  lounged  against  the  parapet  of  the  bridge 
and  watched  us  thoughtfully  as  we  made  our  way 
up  the  long,  gradual  ascent. 

For  some  distance  the  road  skirted  a  belt  of 
pine-trees,  apparently  enclosing  an  estate,  but  we 
presently  came  to  more  primitive  country.  As  on 
our  first  day  in  the  provinces,  we  were  strongly 
reminded  of  Devonshire,  only,  instead  of  red  earth, 
there  was  everywhere  the  clear  grey  of  the  lime- 
stone. The  magnificent  road,  broad  and  white 
and  smooth,  and  said  to  be  of  Roman  origin, 
curved  grandly  along  the  coast,  though  not  always 
in  sight  of  the  sea.  The  hillside  on  the  right  was 
clothed  with  pine,  chestnut,  walnut,  and  beech  ; 
and  here  and  there  a  silver  birch,  or  a  tall  blue 


A  CORNER   IN    LEQUEITIO 


HOSPITALITY  OF  «  CARABINEROS  "  131 

gum,  gave  a  note  of  distinction,  and  kept  up  the 
general  effect  of  pale  tones  and  aerial  delicacy. 
The  morning  air  was  crisp  and  exhilarating,  im- 
pregnated with  the  thin  scent  of  pine  and  euca- 
lyptus, and  made  musical  by  the  tinkling  of 
cow  bells.  At  frequent  intervals  a  strongly 
buttressed  stone  bridge  crossed  a  ravine  with  a 
mountain  torrent,  white  among  the  rich  ferns  and 
mosses,  dashing  down  to  the  pebbly  beaches  below. 
For  all  the  charm  of  wildness  and  loneliness  there 
was  never  lost  the  special  character  of  the  highway, 
with  its  human  dignity  and  traditions.  There 
was  a  stone  at  every  kilometre,  and  in  more  than 
one  place  we  came  upon  two  or  three  men  working 
upon  the  road,  with  a  board  on  a  standard  giving 
the  length  of  the  section  under  repair,  and  the 
district  in  which  it  lay.  Except  for  these  men, 
we  saw  nobody  but  a  few  wood-cutters  working 
on  the  hillside,  and  no  less  than  four  carabineros. 

The  last  of  these  challenged  us  on  a  lonely  part 
of  the  road  about  five  kilometres  from  Ondarroa, 
which  was  to  be  our  first  halting-place.  He  was 
about  five  feet  two,  with  thin,  sandy  hair,  and  a 
little  Dan  Leno  face,  made  all  the  more  comical 
by  the  stern  expression  with  which  he  asked  to  see 
our  passports.  I  believe  we  both  had  an  idea  that 
he  really  was  a  low  comedian,  thoughtfully  pro- 
vided by  the  authorities  of  this  enchanting  land 
for  the  entertainment  of  travellers,  but  that  he 
ought  not  to  have  been  let  out  with  a  rifle.  He 
examined  our  papers  with  a  gravity  which  con- 


132  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

vinced  me  that  he  would  have  been  equally  well 
satisfied  with  a  last  year's  dog  licence.  In  answer 
to  his  questions,  we  gave  him  a  detailed  account  of 
our  past  and  future  movements,  adding,  in  slightly 
injured  tones,  that  he  was  the  first  man  in  Spain 
who  had  wanted  to  see  our  passports. 

He  was  immediately  apologetic,  and  explained 
that,  this  being  the  main  road  to  the  frontier,  there 
were  many  bad  characters  about,  and  how  was  he 
to  know  that  we  were  respectable  ?  Besides,  there 
had  been  a  fall  of  mountain  a  Idlometro  further  on, 
and  with  our  permission  he  would  conduct  us  over 
the  dangerous  place.  His  legs  being  so  much 
shorter  than  ours,  and  our  time  limited,  we  were 
disposed  to  excuse  him  until  it  became  evident 
that  the  pleasant  little  creature  was  paying  us  the 
compliment  of  desiring  our  company.  There  was 
nothing  further  to  be  said,  so  we  adapted  our 
strides  to  his,  and  made  conversation  in  the  best 
Spanish  at  our  command.  In  pursuit  of  his  general 
principle  of  proving  that  things  could  be  done 
differently,  James  was  very  curious  to  know  if  the 
little  man's  rifle  was  really  loaded.  We  turned 
the  conversation  upon  the  relative  merits  of  the 
Lee-Enfield  and  the  Mauser,  and  the  carabinero 
artlessly  threw  open  the  breech  of  his  weapon  and 
showed  it  empty.  We  could  have  disarmed  him 
on  the  spot,  and  James's  honour  was  satisfied.  As 
if  with  an  afterthought,  however,  the  carabinero 
opened  his  pouch  and  showed  us  five  cartridges  in 
a  clip,  two  packets  of  cigarettes,  and  a  faded  rose. 


HOSPITALITY  OF  "  CARABINEROS  "  133 

His  name  he  said,  in  courteous  recognition  of 
having  learned  our  own,  was  Miguel.  He  had 
fought  in  Cuba,  where  he  had  been  shot  through 
the  thigh  —  the  Spanish  soldiers,  he  said  patheti- 
cally, were  "  muy  valientes  "  ("  very  brave  "),  but ! — 
and  now  he  was  guardian  of  the  sea  and  the  land. 
Here  he  swept  the  sea  horizon  on  our  left  with 
imaginary  field-glasses,  and,  calling  us  to  the  side 
of  the  road,  with  a  great  air  of  secrecy  showed  us 
a  little  cubby-house  from  which,  unobserved,  he 
could  spy  upon  travellers. 

Presently  we  came  to  the  place  which  Miguel 
had  spoken  of  as  "pcligroso."  There  had  been 
a  fall  of  rock,  due,  said  Miguel,  to  the  south-west 
wind,  and  the  road,  which  for  twenty  yards  or  so 
had  been  practically  carried  away,  was  rudely 
shored-up  with  timber.  Miguel  made  the  most 
of  the  danger,  walking  delicately  and  keeping  us 
well  away  from  the  cliff-side. 

Spying  the  camera  in  my  coat  pocket,  he  asked 
me  if  I  would  take  his  photograph  when  we  came 
to  the  casa-cuartel  or  barracks  where  he  was  lodged 
with  two  companions,  which  was  only  three  kilo- 
metros  further  on.  I  said  that  I  should  be  de- 
lighted to  do  so  if  we  had  time,  but  that  we  were 
anxious  not  to  miss  the  train  at  Deva.  There  was 
plenty  of  time,  said  Miguel ;  it  was  dangerous  to 
walk  in  the  sun  after  ten  o'clock,  we  must  rest  and 
drink  water  at  the  cuartel,  and  take  the  mule  coach 
from  Ondarroa  to  Deva.  We  could  eat  well  at 
Ondarroa.  There  was  the  most  excellent  food — 


134  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

he  kissed  the  tips  of  his  fingers — to  be  had  at  the 
Fonda  Aspilza. 

The  casa-cuartel  was  a  long  whitewashed  build- 
ing, with  a  trellised  vine,  overlooking  the  sea  and 
surrounded  by  a  little  hot  garden  of  maize,  beans, 
potatoes,  and  pimientas.  Entering  the  "  stoop " 
under  the  vine,  Miguel  called  loudly,  "Jose, 
.lose ! "  and  a  lean,  middle-aged  man,  with  a 
grizzled  moustache,  wearing  dark  uniform  trousers 
and  a  grey  flannel  shirt,  appeared.  Our  friend 
introduced  him  to  us  as  his  commandant ;  the  lady 
and  three  children  who  now  came  to  the  door 
were  the  commandant's  wife  and  family.  Miguel 
himself  was  to  marry  a  certain  Margarita — he 
went  through  the  pantomime  of  clasping  her  to 
his  bosom — in  September. 

He  and  the  commandant  talked  excitedly 
together,  with  many  oaths,  and  presently  it 
appeared  that  the  commandant  too  desired  to  be 
photographed.  Also  his  lady  and  the  children. 
But  they  feared  that  the  cost  would  be  excessive. 

I  explained  that  the  picture  would  be  taken  for 
pleasure  and  sent  from  England  as  a  gift.  Chairs 
were  brought,  and  we  sat  under  the  vine  while  the 
commandant  retired  to  get  into  his  tunic  and  the 
lady  and  children  to  put  on  their  best  clothes. 

"  I  suppose,"  said  Miguel,  "  that  you  carry 
clothes  in  those  bags  ? "  James  was  about  to 
untie  the  strings  of  his  ruck-sack,  but  the  little 
gentleman  flushed  crimson,  and,  springing  to  his 
feet,  with  an  excited  gesture  bade  him  desist. 


HOSPITALITY  OF  «  CARABINEROS  "  135 

Did  we  imagine  that,  after  having  accepted  our 
friendship,  he  would  be  so  base  as  to  wish  to 
exercise  his  privilege  of  examining  the  contents  of 
our  bags  ?  With  difficulty  we  soothed  him  and 
prevailed  upon  him  to  accept,  with  extravagant 
expressions  of  joy,  a  pinch  of  China  tea.  He 
then  invited  us  into  his  room,  where  a  savoury 
stew  was  cooking  in  an  iron  pot  over  the  wood 
fire,  and  gave  us  water  to  drink.  Alas  !  he  had 
no  wine  ;  but  that,  he  knowingly  intimated,  might 
be  remedied  later.  When  we  were  outside  again, 
he  beckoned  us  mysteriously  to  a  corner  of  the 
garden,  where  there  was  a  little  stone  building 
half  underground.  At  first  I  thought  he  had  a 
prisoner  concealed  there,  but  when  I  stooped  and 
peered  into  the  shadow  I  saw  three  tame  rabbits. 

When  the  photograph  had  been  taken,  Miguel 
wrote  his  full  name  and  address  in  my  pocket- 
book  and  made  me  swear  on  the  word  of  an 
Englishman  that  I  would  send  him  three  copies, 
one  for  himself,  one  for  the  commandant,  and 
one  for  Margarita.  If  I  failed  him,  he  would 
never  trust  an  Englishman  again. 

The  carabineros  then  formally  asked  us  to  be 
their  guests  at  the  tavern  where  Margarita  lived. 
We  bade  farewell  to  the  lady  and  the  children, 
Miguel  picked  up  his  rifle,  and  we  set  off  together. 
The  tavern  was  a  large  barn-like  building,  set  back 
against  the  cliff,  with  only  a  withered  bush  at  the 
door  to  show  its  character.  A  group  of  women 
sat  sewing  in  the  shade  of  a  walnut  cree,  and  half- 


136  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

a-dozen  children  played  round  them.  Under  the 
rudely  carved  balcony  of  unpainted  wood,  a  wide 
doorway  gave  to  a  velvety  brown  interior. 

Margarita,  a  tall,  handsome  girl  with  black  hair 
and  brown  eyes,  wearing  a  shabby  cotton  bodice 
and  skirt,  came  forward  on  our  entrance.  Miguel, 
catching  at  her  hand,  made  playful  feints  at  a 
warmer  salutation,  which  she  laughingly  resisted. 
The  commandant  ordered  "  Rioja "  wine  and  the 
carabinero  cider,  and  we  found  with  dismay  that 
we  were  to  suffer  their  alternate  hospitality.  To 
all  our  protests  that  we  had  drunk  enough,  Miguel 
only  answered : 

"  A  commandant  of  carabineros  has  plenty  of 
money.  And  besides,  you  have  only  one  kilometre 
further  to  walk.  The  mule  coach  at  Ondarroa 
will  take  you  to  Deva  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour." 

It  seemed  good  to  us,  emboldened  by  the  wine 
and  the  cider,  that  Margarita  should  be  photo- 
graphed. At  first  she  was  coy,  but  Miguel  and 
her  mother,  a  brown,  wrinkled  dame,  looking 
twice  her  probable  age,  delightedly  pressed  her. 
She  retired  to  change  her  dress,  while  Miguel, 
as  one  with  an  interest  in  the  establishment, 
showed  us  with  pride  the  black  and  white  Swiss 
cow  which  shared  the  ground  floor  with  the  family. 
Margarita  reappeared,  looking  not  near  so  pretty, 
in  a  clean  bodice  with  tight  cuffs  and  collar,  and 
the  other  women  and  the  children  grouped  them- 
selves about  her.  But  the  prettiest  child  of  all, 
for  no  reason  that  we  could  understand,  and 


HOSPITALITY  OF  "  C ARABINEROS  "  137 

against  our  protests,  was  passionately  forbidden  to 
join  them.  Miguel  put  aside  his  rifle,  and  seizing 
an  axe  that  was  lying  near,  posed  himself  in  a 
truculent  attitude. 

"  In  England,"  he  said,  "  they  will  think  that 
carabineros  are  armed  with  axes." 

The  so  strangely  mingled  hospitality  of  cara- 
bineros was  proving  too  much  for  my  head,  and  we 
insisted  firmly  that  we  must  go  on  to  Ondarroa. 
The  two  jolly  fellows  accompanied  us,  Miguel 
repeating  his  phrase  about  the  word  of  an  English- 
man. When  he  heard  that  I  was  a  writer,  he 
begged  me  to  plead  the  cause  of  the  carabineros 
in  the  English  papers.  Carabineros,  he  said,  were 
good  men  and  true,  but  the  Spanish  Government 
was  bad,  and  allowed  them  only  two  pesetas  a  day 
to  keep  themselves  and  their  families.  I  don't 
quite  know  what  I  promised,  but  I  have  a  hazy 
recollection  that  I  agreed  to  tell  Her  Majesty  the 
Queen  of  Spain,  who,  said  Miguel,  was  a  good 
Queen  and  an  Englishwoman,  that  her  loyal 
carabineros  ought  to  get  more  money. 

At  the  top  of  the  hill  above  Ondarroa  we 
parted  from  the  carabineros  with  embraces — 
modified  to  suit  insular  prejudice,  right  hands 
clasped,  left  resting  affectionately  on  the  shoulders 
— and  assurances  of  lifelong  friendship. 

Miguel's  last  word  was  to  remind  me  of  my 
promise  to  send  him  the  photographs.  In  return 
he  swore  by  all  his  gods  to  send  me  a  letter  of  the 
most  exemplary  gratitude.  I  regret  to  say  that 


138  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

the  sequel  illustrates  the  difference  between  the 
Latin  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  attitude  to  the  "  given 
word."  I  sent  him  the  photographs ;  he  did  not 
acknowledge  them. 

As  we  descended  the  hill  into  the  town  I  felt 
as  if  I  were  walking  on  pneumatic  soles,  but  the 
effect  of  the  pure  light  wine  and  cider  soon  passed 
off.  For  discretion,  however,  we  avoided  the  sun 
and  sat  down  in  a  cool  portico  hung  with  fishing- 
nets  in  the  market-place.  We  felt  that  a  meal  at 
the  Fonda  Aspilza  would  be  an  anti-climax,  so 
James  went  off  to  buy  food.  He  returned  with 
his  boina  full  of  pears  and  some  curious  flat,  oval 
cakes  adhering  to  the  sheet  of  paper  on  which  they 
had  been  baked.  "  I  wish  you  were  sober,"  he 
said,  "because  there  are  a  lot  of  jolly  things  to 
photograph  round  the  corner." 

Ondarroa  is  indeed  a  beautiful  little  port,  well 
worth  a  longer  visit  than  the  carabineros  had  left 
us  time  for.  The  fine  old  church,  festooned  with 
nets,  was  not  in  a  position  to  make  a  satisfactory 
photograph  at  that  time  of  day,  but  I  was  able  to 
get  a  picture  of  the  bridge  above  the  harbour 

The  coach  for  Deva  started  at  eleven  o'clock 
from  before  the  Fonda  Aspilza.     It  was  drawn  by 
two  restive  mules,  one  of  which  got  his  hind  lej 
over  the  traces,  and  we  had  to  bear  a  hand  ii 
releasing  him.     Fearing  the  sun,  I  preferred  to  si1 
in  the  interior  of  the  coach,  where  my  companion! 
were  a  commercial  gentleman   and   a   little   bo; 
going  to   play  in   a  Pelota  match  at  Deva,  bul 


THE   MAD   RAILWAY    AGAIN     139 

James  insisted  on  sharing  the  box  with  the  driver, 
who  pointed  warningly  to  his  head.  James  solved 
the  difficulty  in  his  own  mysterious  way  by  re- 
peating "  Mucho,  mucho  on  the  box,"  but  I  pre- 
sently saw  that  the  driver  had  persuaded  him  to 
jchange  his  boina  for  a  wide-brimmed  lady's  hat 
I  of  straw,  with  the  price  upon  it,  which  he  was 
[taking  to  a  customer  in  Deva. 

We  had  only  a  passing  glimpse  of  Motrico, 
fhich  is  on  the  boundary  between  Vizcaya  and 
uipiizcoa.  The  pretty  little  town  takes  its  name 
rom  a  rock  resembling  a  hedgehog,  tricu  being 
he  Basque  name  for  that  animal.  Motrico  was 
lie  birthplace  of  the  brave  Admiral  Churruca  who 
fas  killed  at  Trafalgar;  there  is  a  statue  to  his 
memory  in  the  Plaza. 

Miguel's  quarter  of  an  hour  turned  out  to  be 
n  hour  and  a  quarter ;  and  we  reached  Deva,  with 
ts  wide  river  and  open  streets,  only  just  in  time 
or  our  train.  It  was  pleasant  to  renew  our  ac- 
uintance  with  the  little  mad  railway  by  which 
e  had  travelled  on  the  day  of  our  arrival.  The 
owns  and  villages  through  which  we  passed  had 
nly  gained  in  charm  from  closer  knowledge ;  we 
ooked  out  for  the  names  of  stations — Mendaro, 
£lgoibar,  Eibar,  Ermua — beforehand,  with  a  feei- 
ng of  proprietary  interest,  as  the  train  danced 
long,  for  me,  at  least,  to  a  movement  out  of 
iszt's  3rd  Rhapsody.  The  late  summer  exodus 
>f  the  fashionable  world  of  Spain  to  the  cool 
vatering-places  of  the  North  had  begun.  At 


140  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

Malzaga  we  pulled  up  alongside  a  train  going 
to  San  Sebastian ;  the  look  of  the  first- class 
passengers,  bored  with  their  newspapers,  heavy- 
eyed  with  the  heat,  leaning  out  of  the  windows 
for  air,  confirmed  our  opinion  that,  reasons  oi 
economy  apart,  we  had  chosen  well  to  share  the 
company  of  those  who,  in  the  dignified  meaning 
of  the  term,  are  called  the  common  people. 

As  we  entered  the  now  familiar  mountain- 
guarded  valley  of  the  Durango,  boys  bathing  in 
the  brown  water  of  the  river  shouted  up  at  the 
train  as  if  to  welcome  us,  and  in  a  few  minutes  we 
were  at  the  station,  overlooked  by  the  high  wall  oi 
the  fronton,  with  glittering  peaks  beyond  it. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    ORIGIN    OF     THE      BASQUE     LANGUAGE A     WHITE 

NIGHT THE    EAGLE    OF    DURANGO — TO    CLIMB    AMBOTO 

T^URANGO  lies  on  a  small  river  of  the  same 
^  name  in  the  heart  of  Vizcaya.  In  1901  the 
population  was  less  than  five  thousand,  and  I 
should  not  think  it  had  increased  considerably 
during  the  succeeding  years.  Durango,  though 
commercially  a  more  important  place  than  Guer- 
nica, looks  sleepier  and  bears  fewer  traces  of  recent 
enlargement.  Its  charm  is  the  stationary  charm 
of  a  market  town  with  all  the  business  it  wants 
in  a  local  manufacture  of  wood  and  copper  vessels 
and  articles  of  leather.  The  historical  traditions 
of  Durango  are  too  recent  and  disturbing  in  their 
associations  to  be  reflected  openly,  as  at  Guernica, 
in  the  manner  and  speech  of  its  inhabitants,  for  it 
was,  and  I  believe  still  is,  the  principal  centre  of 
Carlism.  Not  that  we  saw  any  traces  of  disaffec- 
tion, but  we  received  the  impression  that  the  people 
of  Durango  are  too  closely  and  practically  con- 
cerned with  the  idea  of  nationalism  to  be  conscious, 
as  are  the  people  of  Guernica,  of  the  picturesque 
side  of  it.  They  are  not  hypnotised  by  the  Tree. 
The  streets  are  clean  and  architecturally  attractive, 


141 


THE   BASQUE   LANGUAGE        143 

lalf-past  four  the  next  morning.  The  head  of 
the  table  was  taken  by  the  proprietor  of  a  marble 
quarry  somewhere  up  in  the  mountains.  He  had 
travelled  all  over  the  world,  and  was  extremely 
nterested  in  speculations  about  the  origin  of  the 
Basque  language.  At  least  a  dozen  words,  he  said, 
were  identical  in  Basque  and  Japanese.  I  suppose 
there  is  no  subject  more  full  of  pitfalls  for  the 
unlearned  than  that  of  comparative  philology,  but 
there  certainly  seems  to  be  strong  evidence  that 
the  Basque  language,  like  the  Hungarian,  the 
Chinese,  and  the  Japanese,  is  of  Turanian  origin. 
When  on  an  earlier  page  I  remarked  upon  the 
superficial  resemblance  between  printed  Basque 
and  printed  Hungarian,  I  did  not  know  that  the 
latter  language  was  held  by  philologists  to  belong 
to  the  Turanian  family,  nor  had  I  read  the  chapter- 
on  the  Euskara  or  Basque  in  Borrow's  "  Bible  in 
Spain,"  so  that  the  resemblance  is  marked  enough 
to  strike  a  person  ignorant  of  the  theories  on  the 
subject.  The  hint  of  something  else  which  I 
alluded  to  is  precisely  of  Japanese.  I  have  never 
heard  Japanese  spoken,  but  I  believe  that  if  during 
the  time  of  the  Russo-Japanese  war  a  verse  of  a 
Basque  song  such  as  Iru  damacho l  had  been  printed 

1  Jru  damacho  Donostiyako 

Irurak  gona  gorriyak 
Sartutzen  dira  tabernarata 
Irtetzen  dira  ordiyak 

Eta  kriskitin  kraskitin 
Arrosa  krabelin 
Irtetzen  dira  ordiyak. 


144  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

in  an  English  newspaper,  ninety-nine  readers  out 
of  a  hundred  would  have  taken  it  for  something 
Japanese.     But  it  is  not  only  the  Basque  language 
which  contains  these  tantalising  hints  of  the  Mon-  \ 
golian.     The  people  themselves,  with  their  impas-  \ 
sive,  high  cheek-boned  faces,  as  Borrow  observed,  • 
look  like  Tartars,  and  there  is  something  irresist-  I 
ibly  Chinese  about  a  Basque  farmer,  in  his  flat  cap  j 
and  sad  blue  garments,  patiently  cultivating  every 
inch  of  soil,  and  planting  three  crops  where  we 
should  be  content  to  grow  one.     On  referring  to 
a  history  of  music  I  find  the  Basque  instruments, 
the  dulsinya  and  the  tamboril,  almost  exactly  re- 
produced in  the  Chinese  yo  and  ya-kou.     These 
comparisons  are  tempting  and  suggestive,  but  the 
subject  as  a  whole  is  better  left  to  the  specialist. 

In  addition   to  his  remarks  on  language  and; 
history,  our  friend  the  quarry-owner  told  us  many 
interesting   things  about  affairs   of  the   moment. 
Hearing  that  we  were  going  to  Burgos,  he  said 
that  we  must  on  no  account  miss  the  Convent  ofi 
Las  Huelgas  and  the  monastery  of  La  Cartuja. 
We  laid  our  plans  before  him  for  revision,  telling 
him  frankly  the  time  and  money  at  our  disposal. 
On  consideration,  he  did  not  think  it  was  worth 
our  while  stopping  at  Valladolid,  as  we  had  first 
intended  to  do,  and  between  Segovia  and  Toledo 
he  had  no  hesitation  in  advising  the  latter.    "  Spend/ 
as  much  time  as  you  can  in  Toledo,"  he  said,  "  i1 
is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  cities  in  Europe." 
From  time  to  time  he  would  consult  with  one 


A   "WHITE   NIGHT" 


145 


the  other  men  at  the  table,  who  all  seemed  to  take 
a  personal  interest  in  our  plans,  recommending 
hotels  and  the  choice  of  trains.  They  professed 
astonishment  at  our  progress  with  their  language, 
and  gave  us  an  informal  little  lesson,  making  us 
repeat  over  and  over  again  the  names  of  articles 
on  the  table. 

We  spent  the  evening  wandering  about  the 
pleasant  streets  of  the  town.  Always  we  came 
back  to  the  wide  portico  of  the  church,  where  the 
arc  lamps  made  a  moonlight  of  their  own.  Men 
and  women,  in  twos  and  threes,  with  linked  arms, 
walked  soberly  up  and  down  the  portico,  talking 
with  the  quiet  earnestness  which  seemed  to  be  the 
note  of  the  place.  On  the  wall  of  the  church  is 
affixed  a  notice  forbidding  Pelota  to  be  played 
there.  As  we  returned  to  the  Fonda,  the  serenos 
or  night-watchmen  were  turning  out  of  their 
guard-house.  With  their  long,  hooded  cloaks, 
tipped  staves,  and  lanterns,  they  looked  like  supers 
preparing  to  go  on  the  stage  for  the  opening  scene 
of  an  opera. 

There  followed  for  me  one  of  the  most  perfect 
nights  in  my  memory.  For  some  reason  I  did  not 
sleep  at  all,  and  I  had  no  wish  to  sleep,  nor  was  I 
conscious  of  the  negative  condition  of  sleepless- 
ness, but  only  of  an  intense  desire  to  live  through 
every  moment  and  to  extract  the  last  flavour  of 
the  uneventful  hours.  It  was  in  the  double  mean- 
ing a  "  white  night,"  with  an  unclouded  though 
tempered  moonlight  and  a  pure  air  from  off  the 


IO 


146 


A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 


mountains  that  was  very  cold  but  without  bitter- 
ness. Cold  had  become  a  new  and  wholly  pleasur- 
able sensation,  as  if  appreciated  by  a  new  set  of 
nerves.  Time  after  time  I  was  drawn  to  the 
balcony  by  a  feeling  that  was  not  restlessness  but 
rather  the  positive  of  rest,  as  if  the  resting  con- 
sciousness of  every  day  were  happily  watched  over 
by  some  clairvoyant  intelligence  outside  the  body. 
The  moonlit  Paseo  was  gently  alive  with  the 
plash  of  a  fountain  and  the  shivering  of  mulberry 
leaves,  and  there  came  up  to  me  that  indefinable 
drug-like  odour  which  is  the  smell  of  Spain. 
Every  half -hour  a  sereno  passed  under  my 
window,  chanting  the  hour  in  a  phrase  without 
beginning  or  ending,  with  the  lilt  of  a  man's 
walk  in  it,  so  strangely  eloquent  of  time  passing 
that  it  might  have  been  the  music  of  Time  itself 
for  a  moment  made  audible  to  heightened  senses. 

Andante  e  motto  legato. 


Las       tres 


clar 


At  a  quarter  past  three  a  door  opened  a  little 
way  down  the  street,  and  a  sleepy  ostler  carrying 
a  lantern  dragged  his  feet  over  the  cobble-stones, 
and  I  presently  heard  him  grumbling  to  his  horses 
as  they  stirred  in  their  stable.  Exactly  at  the 
half-hour  a  cock  crowed,  and  there  was  an  altera- 
tion in  the  quality  of  the  moonlight;  a  loss  of 


THE   EAGLE   OF   DURANGO       147 

poignancy  as  when  a  melody  is  lowered  from  C 
sharp  to  the  natural  key ;  and  then  the  mountain 
peaks,  hitherto  silvery,  began  to  darken  against  a 
pale  dawn.  Unobserved  on  my  balcony  I  watched 
the  coach  start  for  Vitoria.  The  gruff  mono- 
syllables of  the  muffled -up  commercial  travellers 
contrasted  amusingly  with  their  genial  flow  of 
conversation  at  table  the  night  before.  At  five 
o'clock  the  church  bells  were  ringing  for  early 
mass,  and  when  an  hour  or  so  later  we  went  out 
into  the  exquisite  morning  air,  the  market-women 
were  already  arranging  their  baskets  of  sardines, 
cheeses,  cucumbers,  tomatoes,  beans,  cherries, 
apricots,  and  peaches  under  the  shadow  of  the 
portico  and  in  the  triangular  open  space  before 
it.  For  business  and  pleasure  the  portico  is  the 
centre  of  Durango. 

We  had  yet  to  learn  exactly  how  good  were 
the  food  and  lodging  at  the  Fonda  Olmedal. 
After  morning  coffee  I  was  idly  looking  out  of  the 
balconied  window  of  the  long  dining-room,  when 
my  attention  was  caught  by  something  moving  on 
the  roof  of  a  little  green  summer-house  among  the 
plane  trees  in  the  yard  below.  The  object  was 
bunchy  and  speckled  and  obviously  alive.  Being 
against  the  brilliant  morning  sun,  its  exact  size 
and  shape  were  difficult  to  determine.  I  was  just 
thinking  that  it  looked  rather  large  for  a  hen, 
when 

It  was  an  eagle ! 

There  was  something  oddly  reproachful  in  the 


148  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

blood -rimmed,  unwinking  eye  that  stared  into 
mine  from  amidst  those  banal,  backyard  surround- 
ings. Hastily  descending  to  the  cafe,  I  asked  the 
waiter  if  I  had  been  mistaken.  No,  he  said,  it 
really  was  an  eagle. 

"  He  came  down  from  the  mountains  twenty 
— thirty  years  ago  with  an  injured  wing,  and  he 
has  been  here  ever  since." 

He  took  me  into  the  yard  to  have  a  better  look 
at  the  king  of  birds.  There  was  something  in  its 
appearance — the  bald  head,  the  hooked  beak,  the 
bloodshot  eye — which  reminded  me  irresistibly  of 
an  aged  veteran — say  a  colonel  of  the  Old  Guard. 
Seeing  that  I  was  interested,  the  bird  shuffled 
along  the  ridge  and  made  an  effort  to  flap  its  wings. 
I  had  the  ashamed  feeling  which  one  suffers  on 
seeing  a  fine  and  dignified  character  in  humiliating 
circumstances,  but,  in  spite  of  that,  some  tourist 
instinct  set  me  hankering  to  take  the  bird's 
photograph. 

"  Could  you  persuade  him  to  move  into  a 
better  position  ? "  I  asked  the  waiter.  He  shook 
his  head. 

"  No,  Sefior ;  he  comes  down  only  to  eat  and 
drink." 

He  pointed  to  a  trough  in  a  corner  of  the  yard, 
a  little  iron  trough  such  as  kindly  shopkeepers 
provide  for  the  use  of  puppy-dogs. 

That  ought  to  have  touched  me,  but  I  went 
to  get  my  camera.  When  I  returned  the  waiter 
was  gone.  The  eagle  looked  cautiously  around, 


THE   EAGLE   OF   DURANGO       149 

coughed,  and — if  I  may  be  believed — said  hoarsely 
but  affably : 

"  Want  to  take  my  picture — hey  ?  " 

"  If  you  wouldn't  very  much  mind,"  I 
stammered. 

"Not  at  all,"  he  said.  "I've  got  a  touch  of 
gout— but  still.  How's  that— hey  ? " 

With  an  immense  effort  he  half  spread  his 
wings,  protruded  his  withered  neck,  and,  wobbling 
uncertainly  on  his  perch,  called  up  a  dull  glow 
into  his  rheumy  eye. 

The  effect  was  pitiful.  I  hastily  snapped  the 
shutter  and  thanked  him.  I  am  glad  to  record, 
by  the  way,  that  the  picture  was  a  complete 
failure. 

"  Well,"  said  the  eagle,  "  and  how  do  you  like 
Durango  ? " 

I  said  that  I  was  charmed  with  the  place  and 
the  people,  and  added  a  compliment  to  the  Fonda 
Olmedal. 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  the  bird  testily,  "  they  do  me 
pretty  well.  A  little  too  much  merluza — hake, 
you  know — and  the  lamb  isn't  quite  what  it  was 
in  Fr — but  I  can't  grumble.  Stopping  here  long  ? " 

I  told  him  that  I  was  going  by  coach  to 
Vitoria  on  the  following  afternoon. 

"  Ah,  Vitoria,"  he  said ;  "  I  got  pinked  in  the 
liver- wing  at  Vitoria.  .  .  .  You  will  travel  by  the 
road  that  He  made,"  he  added  dreamily. 

«  Who—?  "  I  began. 

"  The  Emperor  !  " 


150  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

"  Then  you  really  are— 

"  Ssh !  They  must  never  know  that  I  am  a 
Frenchman.  It's  a  long  story,  but — well,  well,  you 
know,"  he  said  apologetically,  "  one  can't  keep  up 
a  feud  for  ever,  and  your  people — no  offence,  you 
fought  fair — having  broken  his  heart  at  St.  Helena, 
there  was  no  reason — was  there  ? — why  an  old 
soldier  should  not  look  out  for  himself." 

He  told  me  many  and  interesting  things 
that  only  lack  of  space  prevents  my  recording. 
There  had  been  fighting  since  he  had  lived  at 
Durango. 

"  I  have  seen  a  thousand  Carlists  camped  in 
the  portico  behind  there,"  he  said. 

When  I  took  leave  of  him,  he  said  with  some 
embarrassment :  "  There's  just  one  little  thing. 
When  the  waiter — good  fellow,  Pedro,  but  a  bit 
forgetful — brings  you  your  coffee  after  dinner, 
there  will  be  at  least  five  pieces  of  sugar.  Have 
you  a  very  sweet  tooth  ?  I'm  getting  an  old  bird, 
you  know,  and  a  bit  of  sugar " 

I  understood,  and  promised  him  that  the  matter 
should  be  attended  to. 

The  Fonda  Olmedal  at  Durango  can  boast  a 
distinction  which,  so  far  as  I  know,  is  enjoyed  by 
no  other  hotel  in  the  whole  world.  It  is  so  com- 
fortable that  an  eagle  of  the  Pyrenees — and  a 
French  eagle  at  that — has  lived  there  for  more 
than  thirty  years  a  willing  pensioner. 

When  James  returned  from  a  solitary  ramble 
round  the  town,  he  made  unworthy  remarks  about 


THE  PORTICO;  DURANGO.    (INTERIOR) 


WHITE   OXEN;  DURANGO 


THE   EAGLE   OF   DURANGO       151 

the  soporific  effects   of  sunlight   and    cigarettes, 
but  he  could  not  explain  away  the  eagle.      The 
sunlight,  indeed,  was  brilliant  enough  to  keep  us 
in  the  fashion  of  Durango  by  spending  the  best 
part  of  the  morning  in  the  portico  of  the  church, 
where  we  enjoyed  the  company  of  a  very  intelli- 
gent little  boy  of  eleven,  who  was  learning  English 
"  out  of  a  little  book  "  under  the  guidance  of  his 
father.      At  intervals,  with  a  sense  of  daring,  we 
would  make  a  little  excursion  to  take  a  photograph, 
or  to  watch  the  shoemakers  and  coppersmiths  at 
work  in  the  Artecalle.     This  name,  which  we  came 
across  in  several  towns,  means,  I  suppose,  "the 
street  of  the  arts,"  in  the  sense  of  handicrafts  ;  and 
the  effect  of  the  little,  cool,  dark  interiors,  with  a 
man  in  the  background  actually  engaged  in  making 
the  goods  displayed  in  the  window,  is  homely  and 
friendly,   recalling   what  one  has  read  about  the 
Indian  bazaar.     More  than  once  we   found   our- 
selves regretting  the  necessity  for  travelling  light. 
At  the  shop  of  Castor  Menchega,  "  calderero  "  (or 
coppersmith),    I    could   have   bought   a   beautiful 
copper  cauldron,  shaped  like  a  gipsy  kettle  and 
admirably   decorated  with  a   herring-bone  "  tool- 
ing," for  seventeen  pesetas — about  twelve  shillings. 
In  the  zapateros,  or  shoemakers,  were  being  made 
a  delightfully  simple  footgear  called  albarkas,  con- 
sisting of  a  leaf-shaped  piece  of  hide  with  the  per- 
forated edges  turned  up,  and  threaded  with  a  blue 
tape  or  ribbon  to  draw  the  whole  together  and 
fasten  round  the  ankle.     These  were  made  in  all 


152  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

sizes,  from  great  sabot-looking  affairs  to  the  tiniest 
little  trotter- cases  of  softest  leather. 

The  Artecalle  of  Durango  leads  in  a  direct  line 
from  the  portico  to  the  beautiful  gateway  shown 
in  the  photograph  facing  this  page.  This  gives  on 
the  river  and  the  main  road  to  Vitoria.  Four  main 
roads  leave  Durango,  and  as  each  looked  equally 
inviting  and  led  apparently  to  mountains,  James 
and  I  spent  an  hour  lazily  debating  which  we 
should  choose  for  our  afternoon  walk.  The  silvery 
peak  which  peered  so  insistently  over  the  high 
wall  of  the  Pclota  court  finally  decided  us  to  take 
the  road  leading  to  Vitoria. 

Amboto  is  a  little  mountain  as  mountains  go, 
being  not  quite  four  thousand  feet.  Neither  of  us, 
however,  had  climbed  a  mountain  before,  and  so  we 
said  that  we  would  climb  Amboto.  As  when,  at 
three  o'clock,  we  passed  through  the  gateway  at 
the  end  of  the  Artecalle,  and,  taking  the  road  pic- 
tured at  the  end  of  this  chapter,  came  in  full  view 
of  the  pearly-grey  limestone  peak,  with  its  neck- 
lace of  chestnut  trees  and  sweeping  skirts  of  maize, 
corn,  and  vines,  we  calculated  how  long  it  would 
take  us  to  reach  the  top.  An  hour  and  a  quarter- 
say  three  hours  there  and  back.  That  would  bring 
us  home  in  good  time  for  dinner.  There  was  no 
hurry ;  meanwhile  we  would  see  whatever  there 
was  to  be  seen  on  the  road. 

There  was  the  church  of  Izurza,  for  example. 
We  found  the  padre  of  Izurza  sitting  on  a  log  in 
the  shade  of  walnut  trees  reading  the  Diario  del 


GATEWAY  ;  DURANGO 


TO   CLIMB   AMBOTO  153 

Norte.  He  was  a  little,  weak-eyed,  stubbly  man 
in  a  stained  gown,  with  a  queer,  smiling,  furtive 
manner. 

"  You  are  Englishmen,"  he  said  unnecessarily, 
and  invited  us  to  sit  beside  him  on  the  log.  He 
asked  us  how  much  tobacco  we  had,  but  when  we 
offered  him  some  declined  it,  and  laughed  know- 
ingly. As  he  talked  he  drew  with  the  point  of  his 
stick  in  the  dust  a  curious  diagram,  which  he 
effaced  and  repeated  several  times.  This  being  the 
heart  of  the  Carlist  country,  it  occurred  to  me  that 
the  padre  wanted  to  find  out  on  which  side  our 
sympathies  lay  ;  that  the  allusion  to  tobacco  was 
a  blind,  and  the  diagram  a  secret  sign.  His 
manner,  when  we  assured  him  that  we  were  tra- 
velling merely  for  pleasure,  was  one  of  polite  incre- 
dulity, with  a  sly  hint  that  we  might  safely  give 
him  our  confidence.  He  was  particularly  anxious 
to  know  what  we  did,  and  somehow  arrived  at  the 
conclusion,  satisfactory  to  himself,  that  we  were 
carpenters.  It  was  much  too  hot  to  dispute  the 
point,  though,  even  in  this,  there  was  the  tantalising 
suggestion  that  he  had  used  the  word  "  carpenters  " 
symbolically,  as  if  he  had  said,  "  You  are  Masons." 

We  asked  him  if  we  might  look  at  his  little 
church,  which  was  locked.  He  rose,  and  taking 
us  to  the  side  door  of  a  large  house — a  palacio,  he 
called  it — with  magnolias  in  the  garden,  pulled  the 
bell-wire.  The  door  was  opened  by  a  small,  dark, 
sharp-featured  lady  of  uncertain  age,  whom  he 
introduced  as  "  mi  patrona"  and  from  whom  he 


154  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

received  the  key  of  the  church  as  if  her  permission 
to  make  use  of  it  were  something  of  a  favour. 

The  church,  on  entering  which  the  padre  gave 
us  the  Holy  Water  rather  quizzically,  was  a  tiny 
building  with  whitewashed  walls  bulging  outward, 
and  a  black  wooden  gallery.  Under  the  altar, 
which  had  a  glazed  front,  lay  a  life-sized  effigy  of 
the  martyred  patron  with  his  wounds  upon  him. 
The  place  was  hung  with  an  extraordinary  collec- 
tion of  votive  offerings ;  tinsel  flowers,  braids  of 
hair,  wax  models  of  limbs,  bandages  and  images. 
The  gaudy  retablo  contained  several  figures  of 
saints,  and  the  padre  asked  us  our  Christian  names, 
so  that  he  might  point  out  our  patrons.  James, 
of  course,  was  settled  in  a  moment,  but  for  some 
time  it  seemed  as  if  I  were  to  go  unsainted.  The 
good  padre  stood  with  his  forefinger  to  the  side 
of  his  nose — the  action  which  in  Spain  express< 
cogitation,  caution,  and  half-a-dozen  other  things. 
Finally  his  face  lit  up,  and  he  cried : 

"  Ah — San  Carlos — Borromeo  ! "  We  said  the 
last  word  together  and  gripped  hands  as  he  patted 
me  on  the  shoulder  in  sincere  congratulation. 

We  sat  on  the  log  again,  took  snuff,  and  talked 
with  that  half- comprehension  of  each  other's  mean- 
ing which  makes  conversation  even  about  trivial 
matters  in  a  strange  tongue  a  series  of  excited 
pursuits  of  the  illuminating  word,  brow-beatin/ 
of  despair,  and  sudden  triumphs,  as  if  human  speed 
were  being  made  over  again.     A  shrine  under  th< 
trees  across  the  way,  with  a  slot  for  offerings,  th< 


TO   CLIMB   AMBOTO  155 

padre  dismissed  as  "  una  pequena  cosa  "  ("  a  little 
affair"),  with  a  polite  wave  of  his  hand  as  if  to 
absolve  us  from  giving.  He  asked  us  many  ques- 
tions about  England.  Was  it  true,  for  example, 
that  in  England  the  matches  were  so — he  measured 
off  about  six  inches — long  ? 

"  This,"  said  James  sententiously,  "  is  very  in- 
teresting, but  it  is  not  mountains." 

I  asked  the  padre  how  long  it  would  take  us  to 
climb  Amboto. 

"  I  do  not  know,"  he  said ;  "  it  is  in  the  next 
parish.  But  here  comes  my  brother  of  Mafiaria." 

The  strange  figure  of  a  priest  was  approaching 
us  along  the  hot,  white  road.  He  was  tall  and 
bulky,  he  carried  a  stout  stick,  and  he  rolled  in  his 
walk.  He  was  accompanied  by  a  little  dog,  which 
looked  as  if  some  humorous  person  had  made  fun 
of  the  idea  of  a  pointer.  Its  colour  was  flea-bitten 
pink,  it  had  scalloped  ears,  red  eyes,  and  a  tassel  at 
the  end  of  its  tail. 

The  priest  roared  a  salutation  from  afar.  When 
he  came  nearer  I  saw  that  he  had  a  countenance 
which  could  only  be  described  as  volcanic.  It 
was  inflamed  and  covered  with  little  knobs  which 
pointed  in  every  direction.  When  he  talked,  or 
rather  shouted,  he  foamed  at  the  mouth. 

"  To  climb  Amboto  ? "  he  said  in  reply  to  his 
brother  of  Izurza  ;  "  Vaminos!" 

He  swung  round  and  we  set  off  together  to 
climb  Amboto ;  the  padre  of  Izurza,  the  padre  of 
Maiiaria  with  his  little  dog  "  Lish  " — I  will  not  be 


156  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

responsible  for  the  spelling — and  two  wandering 
Englishmen,  who  for  the  time  were  carpenters. 
The  coach  to  Vitoria,  by  which  we  were  to  travel 
on  the  morrow,  drawn  by  three  horses  abreast, 
passed  us  in  a  cloud  of  dust  with  a  flash  of  eyes 
and  teeth  and  a  glow  of  crimson  flowers  from  the 
curtained  interior ;  two  Civil  Guards,  walking  in 
single  file  a  dozen  paces  apart,  saluted  us  gravely ; 
the  reapers  in  the  fields  waved  to  us  and  cried 
"  Agur  /"  which  is  the  Basque  form  of  "  Adios  /" 
We  were  like  a  procession  out  of  Lewis  Carroll. 

After  an  hour  we  were  not  appreciably  nearer 
Amboto,  though  the  mountain,  so  to  speak,  made 
no  effort  at  concealment.  It  simply  retired.  There 
was  nothing  but  hot  air  between  us  and  the  lower 
slope,  where  goats  were  feeding.  The  glittering 
peak  above  a  belt  of  woodland  looked  ironical  upon 
a  pure  blue  sky ;  and  two  birds,  which  looked  like 
ravens  but  from  their  size  must  have  been  eagles, 
sailed  grandly  round  it.  The  padre  of  Manaria 
stopped  suddenly  and  rubbed  his  brow  with  a  red 
pocket-handkerchief. 

"  My  body,"  he  roared,  extending  his  hands 
piteously,  "  there  is  too  much  of  it !  In  Manaria 
we  will  find  a  cliico — a  little  boy.  He  no  doubt 
will  guide  you.  Arriba,  arriba — up,  up  ! " 

But  in  Manaria  we  found  the  Casa  Municipal, 
which  was  tavern,  school,  and  public  offices  in  one. 
The  afternoon,  as  I  said,  was  hot,  the  wine  good, 
and  the  company  better.  Besides,  was  there  no1 
always  "  manana  ?  " 


TO   CLIMB   AMBOTO  157 

After  a  merely  formal  conviviality  the  padre  of 
[zurza  blessed  us  and  withdrew,  but  his  brother 
of  Mariana  did  the  honours  of  the  place  with  ex- 
plosive good-humour.  He  showed  us  the  little 
children  at  their  lessons,  the  Swiss  cow,  the  small 
shop  where  bacon  and  cheese  were  sold,  and  three 
grave  young  men  who  were  busy  about  some  official 
papers  in  an  upper  room.  He  was  proudest  of  all 
of  a  huge  stalactite,  weighing  about  a  hundred- 
weight, which  had  been  found  in  a  neighbouring 
cavern.  "  It  is  yours !  "  he  cried  with  outspread 
arms,  when  we  had  sufficiently  admired  it. 

At  Manaria  there  are  "  Stations  of  the  Cross  "  by 
the  wayside  leading  to  a  Calvary  in  a  little  chapel 
with  a  wonderful  gate  of  wrought  iron.  There  are 
quarries  in  the  neighbourhood  from  which  were 
taken  the  black  marble  columns  of  the  chapel  of 
the  Royal  Palace  at  Madrid.  The  village,  over- 
hung by  the  wooded  slopes  of  mountains,  was  the 
scene  of  a  battle  in  1872  in  which  the  Carlists  were 
beaten. 

We  loitered  on  the  way  home,  lying  full  length 
on  a  low  wall  beside  the  river,  lulled  by  the  sleepy 
murmur  of  a  weir,  the  sighing  of  round-headed 
pines,  and  the  tinkle  tinkle  of  cow-bells  as  the  mild 
beasts  trod  softly  in  the  thick  white  dust  of  the 
roadway.  A  pleasant  smell  of  burning  was  in  the 
air.  Our  unregretted  failure  to  climb  Amboto 
was  only  another  symptom  of  the  subtle  content- 
ment that  was  growing  upon  us.  Why  should  we 
climb  Amboto  ?  "  Why,  in  fact,"  said  James, 


158  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

"  should  we  do  anything  when  we  could  live  in 
this  pleasant  land  for  about  three  shillings  a  day  ? " 
England  and  its  business  seemed  a  very  long  way 
off.  We  talked  of  our  friends,  wondering  com- 
passionately what  they  were  doing  at  this  hour. 

On  the  outskirts  of  Durango  we  met  the  little 
padre  of  Izurza  walking  with  a  tall  young  man 
dressed  in  the  English  fashion  in  a  light  grey 
flannel  suit  and  straw  hat. 

"  You  have  climbed  Amboto  ? "  said  the  padre 

slyly. 

"  Manana"  we  replied  together. 

His  companion,  who  was  one  of  the  handsomest 
men  I  have  ever  seen,  with  dark,  soft  eyes  in  a 
pale,  refined  face,  addressed  us  in  English.  He 
spoke  our  language  perfectly,  with  a  delicacy  of 
intonation  which  gave  it  a  new  charm.  He  asked 
us  about  our  plans,  wishing  that  he  could  com< 
with  us.  There  was  in  his  manner,  and  particu- 
larly in  his  smile,  a  curious  melancholy  as  if  h< 
had  learned  patience  from  the  contemplation  of 
lost  causes.  Later  in  the  evening  we  met  the  pair 
again,  pacing  arm  in  arm  up  and  down  the  portico 
in  earnest  conversation,  and  we  wondered  if  be- 
tween this  gentle -voiced  young  aristocrat — for  so 
he  appeared — and  the  shabby  little  padre  there  was 
some  romantic  adventure  like  that  of  the  Jacobites 
in  England.  Time  after  time  we  were  told  that 
Carlism  in  Spain  is  dead,  but  the  impression  we 
received  in  Durango  and  other  places  in  the  Basque 
provinces  was  that  of  a  people  waiting. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  ECCENTRICITIES  OF  ENGLISHMEN THE   PADRE   OF 

^URZA VICENTE,    THE     COACH-DRIVER THE    ASCENT    OF 

MBOTO URQUIOLA THE     PROVINCE    OF    ALAVA OCHAN- 

IANO MANUEL,  THE  WOODMAN VILLAR-REAL A  "  FAUX 

As  " NEW  CHARACTER  OF  CHURCHES THRESHING-FLOORS 

-VITORIA 

rHE  coach  to  Vitoria  left  Durango  at  half-past 
three  in   the    afternoon.     When   I  went   to 
ook  our  seats  at  a  little  office  near  the  Fonda, 
fat  man,  who  was  to  be  our   fellow-passenger, 
haffed  me  about  the  wealth  of  Englishmen. 

"  You  must  have  a  lot  of  money,"  he  said  in 
ffect,  "  to  be  able  to  go  from  Durango  to  Vitoria, 
wenty-seven  miles,  by  coach,  merely  for  the  fun 
f  the  thing." 

He  was  of  that  peculiarly  offensive  type,  found 

suppose  in  every  nation  under  the  sun,  to  whom 

well-filled  purse  is  a  matter  of  such  reverence 

hat   it   can   only   be   spoken   of  with   nods   and 

rinks   and  hoarse  chuckles  and  slappings  of  the 

>ocket. 

"Englishmen,"  said  the  grave  man  who  sold 
he  tickets,  "  travel  all  over  the  world,  on  foot,  for 
leasure."  He  waited  a  moment  and  then,  as  if 


159 


160  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

the  statement  were  incredible,  added  impressively f 
"  I  have  seen  it." 

We  had  some  difficulty  in  persuading  the  driveij 
of  the  coach  that  we  preferred  to  ride  outside,  and) 
he  grumbled  a  little  as  he  rearranged  the  luggage] 
to  make  room  for  us.  The  fat  man  and  his  com-] 
panion,  who  was  a  rather  prim-looking  lady,  evi-j 
dently  thought  that,  as  persons  of  wealth  and  soi 
desirable  acquaintances,  we  were  very  unfriendly 
in  not  joining  them  in  the  interior. 

The  driver  was  a  poorly-dressed  young  man  ofi 
about  twenty-five,  with  a  lowering  expression  and] 
bloodshot  eyes.     For  the  first  half-mile  he  sat  witty 
his  chin  on  his  breast  and  said  nothing.     Hang- 
dog looks  and  rough  manners,  as  we  so  often  founc 
in  this  country,  covered  the  simple  friendliness 
a  child.     We  did  not  make  much  headway  wit! 
him,  however,  until  he  had  satisfied  himself  thai 
we  were  bueri  catolicos,  when  he  accepted  cigai 
ettes,   told  us  that    his  name  was    Vicente,  an< 
began  shyly  to  ask  the  names  of  things  in  Englisl 
Between  his  questions  he  droned  an  imprompti 
chant  about  the  weather,  his  commissions  by  th< 
way,   and   the   personal   characters   of   the   thn 
horses  which   were  harnessed  abreast.     Occasion- 
ally he  would  interrupt  the  song  with  harsh  cries 
of  encouragement  that  sounded  like  "  Volu,  volu, 
volu  f  "  and  a  savage  cut  with  the  long  whip. 

As  we  passed  through  Izurza  the  little  padi 
sat  on  the  log  under  the  walnut  trees  still  readii 
the  Diario  del  Norte.     He  looked  up,  waved  hii 


VICENTE,   THE   COACH-DRIVER    161 

hand,  and  cried,   half  in   question,   half  in  vale- 
diction : 

"  A  Fitoria  !  " 

Outside  the  Casa  Municipal  at  Mafiaria  three 
more  horses  were  waiting  in  the  road  to  be  hooked 
on  abreast  for  the  long  ascent  to  Urquiola,  at  the 
summit  of  a  mountain  pass  between  Amboto  and 
its  loftier  brother  Gorbea,  which  is  the  highest  peak 
in  the  Basque  provinces.  This  pass  may  be  looked 
upon  as  one  of  the  gateways  from  the  north  coast 
to  the  raised  interior  of  Spain  through  the  Cantab- 
rian  Mountains,  which  are  practically  continuous 
with  the  Pyrenees.  South  of  a  line  drawn  through 
Amboto  and  Gorbea,  and  forming  the  boundary 
Between  Vizcaya  and  A  lava,  the  land  slopes  gradu- 
ally into  the  Concha  or  "  Bay  "  of  Alava,  in  the 
centre  of  which  lies  the  town  of  Vitoria. 

The  ascent  begins  immediately  beyond  Manaria 
ind  continues  for  about  six  kilometros  in  a  series  of 
noble  curves.  Vicente  took  a  crumpled  newspaper 
iom  his  pocket  and  allowed  his  team  to  pick  their 
[>wn  way  up  the  hill.  Now  and  again,  when  they 
lad  cunningly  reduced  the  angle  of  their  zig-zag 
progress  so  that  we  were  almost  at  a  standstill,  he 
would  wake  up  and  passionately  revile  their  morals. 
The  three  wheelers  were  Spanish,  he  said,  and  at 
[east  knew  what  he  thought  of  them ;  but  the 
leaders  were  Frenchmen.  They  did  not  under- 
stand Spanish ;  they  only  understood  the  whip. 
Vicente's  handling  of  this  weapon,  by  the  way, 

llustrated  the  cliche  of  romancers  who  make  their 
ii 


162  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

heroes  "  pick  a  fly  from  the  off  leader's  ear."  I 
saw  him  do  it  more  than  once.  The  flies,  which 
James,  who  is  learned  in  such  matters,  declared  to 
be  of  a  species  peculiar  to  the  New  Forest,  were 
discriminating  and  ignored  the  lean  Spaniards  to 
settle  upon  the  sleek  Frenchmen.  At  a  sharp 
turn  of  the  road  Vicente  pointed,  with  a  grim 
chuckle,  to  a  breach  in  the  wall  overhanging  a 
precipice  which,  he  said,  was  made  by  a  runaway 
motor.  Nobody  was  hurt,  however. 

The  magnificent  scenery,  in  violent  light  and 
shade,  reminded  one  of  the  pictures  of  Salvator 
Rosa.  We  saw  no  living  creature  except  a  few 
goats,  but  occasionally  we  heard  the  report  of  a 
gun  in  the  thick  woods  on  the  mountain-side,  and 
it  would  not  have  seemed  surprising  if  we  had  been 
suddenly  surrounded  by  a  band  of  brigands.  At 
this  time  of  year,  however,  nothing  fiercer  than  a 
rabbit  inhabits  these  woods,  though  we  heard  that 
wolves  are  not  uncommon  in  winter.  Very  slowly 
we  ascended  above  the  oaks,  chestnuts,  and  wal- 
nuts, into  a  region  of  pines  and  polled  beeches. 
Above  and  a  little  to  the  left  was  the  bare  peak  of 
Amboto,  from  which  a  cold  wind  was  blowing. 

At  six  o'clock,  with  a  team  of  six  horses,  we 
had  just  reached  Urquiola,  on  the  shoulder  of  the 
mountain  we  had  set  out  so  gaily  to  climb  between 
lunch  and  dinner  on  the  previous  afternoon.  We 
waited  for  a  few  minutes  at  the  splendidly  situated 
and  well-named  Hotel  de  Buenos  Aires,  where 
we  dropped  a  mail-bag  and  left  the  three  French 


VICENTE,   THE   COACH-DRIVER    163 

horses.  Close  behind  us  was  another  coach  full  of 
people,  who,  said  Vicente,  were  probably  going  to 
stop  at  a  sanatorium  in  the  neighbourhood.  The 
sanctuary  of  San  Antonio  Abad,  which  lies  a  little 
to  the  left,  is  the  scene  of  a  pilgrimage  on  June  13. 
A  huge  basilica,  which  actually  encloses  the  pre- 
sent church,  is  being  built  entirely  by  contributions 
from  the  peasantry.  We  were  told  that  they  feel 
the  strain  severely,  but,  as  I  remarked  before,  a  sys- 
tem of  religion  which — to  use  the  formula  adopted 
by  Professor  James  in  "Varieties  of  Religious 
Experience" — seems  to  "  work  "  so  well  in  its  effect 
upon  the  lives  of  the  people,  is  worth  the  expense. 

Now  we  began  to  descend  through  a  country 
entirely  different  from  that  on  the  north  side  of 
the  mountains.  Instead  of  the  rugged  hills  and 
savage  glens  there  were  wide  grass  lands  and  fields 
of  corn.  At  a  large  model  farm  to  the  left  of  the 
road  a  herd  of  Swiss  cows  were  grazing. 

So  far  as  one  can  judge  from  a  coach  ride 
through  the  heart  of  it,  Alava  is  the  tamest  and 
least  interesting  of  the  Basque  provinces.  In 
character  as  in  position,  it  forms  a  connecting  link 
between  the  Alpine  beauty  of  Vizcaya  and  Gui- 
piizcoa  and  the  weird  monotony  of  the  Castiles, 
while  missing  the  special  charm  of  either. 

Vicente  became  more  talkative  with  each  kilo- 
metro  of  the  descent.  He  was  not  very  intelligent, 
but  he  made  heroic  attempts  to  learn  the  English 
name  of  everything  within  sight.  I  believe  he  had 
an  idea  that  he  could  learn  enough  English  in  the 


164  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

course  of  the  journey  to  go  to  London  and  drive 
a  bus,  which  was  the  height  of  his  ambition.  Oc- 
casionally he  would  look  at  us  with  an  appealing 
smile  on  his  harsh  features  and  say,  timidly,  "  My 
frien's."  He  was  married,  he  said,  and  had  three 
children,  and  he  looked  a  little  weighed-down  by 
family  cares.  His  home  was  at  Villar-real,  nine 
miles  from  Vitoria,  where  he  would  have  to  leave 
us ;  a  new  driver  and  fresh  horses  would  take  us 
on  to  the  end  of  our  journey. 

My  memory  of  Ochandiano,  the  first  village  in 
A  lava,  is  that  of  a  long,  narrow,  cobbled  street  of 
broad-eaved  houses  in  a  cool  twilight  smelling  of 
new-mown  hay.  The  tall  bell-tower  of  the  church 
overlooks  a  wide  plaza  where  boys  were  playing 
Pelota.  For  some  unaccountable  reason,  unless  as  a 
symbol  of  the  sulphur  springs  in  this  neighbourhood, 
the  plaza  is  decorated  with  a  little  iron  statue  of 
Vulcan.  Vicente  drank  wine  with  us  in  a  low- 
browed tienda  which  had  all  the  look  of  a  general 
shop  in  an  English  village.  Beyond  Ochandiano 
the  grass  country  gives  place  to  woodland,  the 
trees,  beginning  with  a  double  row  of  beeches 
beside  the  road,  thickening  and  darkening  into 
masses  of  pines  like  those  of  the  Landes.  A 
broad,  shallow,  grass-grown  trench  to  the  left  of 
the  road,  continuing  for  several  miles,  puzzled  us 
until  Vicente  told  us  that  it  was  the  bed  of  a 
railway  projected  by  or  in  the  interests  of  the 
ubiquitous  English  miner.  There  were  other 
traces  of  his  occupation  in  the  shape  of  reddened 


MANUEL,   THE   WOODMAN        165 

water  issuing  from  a  broken  conduit,  but  so  far 
as  I  know  there  is  no  mining  carried  on  in  this 
neighbourhood  now,  though  there  are  several  bath- 
ing establishments  for  the  use  of  mineral  waters. 

At  a  cross-road  we  pulled  up  to  allow  the  pass- 
age of  a  timber  waggon  accompanied  by  a  band  of 
high  -  spirited  young  men.  In  place  of  a  driver 
they  had  set  up  a  scarecrow  figure  of  two  crossed 
sticks  and  a  blouse  and  boina.  Two  sturdy  Civil 
Guards  waited  at  the  corner,  and  their  broad,  good- 
humoured  faces  lit  up  with  childlike  pleasure  when 
Vicente  gave  them  letters  from  his  post-bag.  One 
of  the  woodmen,  a  lissom  young  fellow  with  laugh- 
ing eyes  and  a  dare-devil  swagger,  wearing  a  broad 
red  sash  round  his  waist  and  a  jacket  hanging 
hussar-fashion  from  his  shoulders,  swung  himself 
up  beside  us.  He  greeted  Vicente  affectionately, 
and  was  introduced  to  us  as  Manuel,  "  my  frienV 
Manuel  stared  for  a  moment  at  the  unfamiliar 
words  and  then  burst  into  a  roar  of  laughter  ;  but 
Vicente  was  not  to  be  discouraged,  and  with  a 
knowing  smile  pointed  to  his  beasts  and  said 
"'orses."  His  friend  now  tumbled  to  the  situa- 
tion, and,  slapping  him  delightedly  on  the  back, 
made  him  go  through  his  newly  acquired  vocabu- 
lary. The  comradeship  between  the  two  young 
men,  the  one  quick-witted  and  fancy-free,  the 
other  comparatively  dull  and  a  little  oppressed  by 
family  cares,  was  very  charming  to  see.  Manuel, 
tapping  the  seat,  asked  the  English  for  madera. 
"  Wood,"  we  told  him,  and,  with  a  mischievous 


166  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

cock  of  his  eyes,  he  touched  Vicente  on  the  head 
and  said  "  Wud  ! "  What  pleased  him  more  than 
anything,  however,  was  being  able  to  tell  us  the 
exact  relationship,  which  we  had  for  the  moment 
forgotten,  between  the  Queen  of  Spain  and  our 
own  sovereign. 

On  the  outskirts  of  Villar-real,  Vicente  pointed 
to  a  very  poor  dwelling,  little  better  than  a  hovel, 
and  said,  "  Su  ram"  ("  Your,"  that  is  to  say,  "  My 
house  ").  Three  little  children  ran  from  the  door  as 
we  passed;  two  of  them  greeted  Vicente  with  cheers, 
but  the  third  and  youngest,  wearing  only  a  shirt, 
fled  before  us  with  outstretched  arms  and  stum- 
bling footsteps  down  the  village  street,  while  the 
people  at  their  doors  yelled  with  laughter.  A 
woman  caught  up  the  child  and  bade  him  look 
at  his  father,  and  he  soon  recovered  from  his  attack 
of—  literally— "  stage-fright." 

Villar-real  was  all  misty  and  fragrant  with  the 
blue  smoke  of  burning  wood  hanging  low  in  the 
evening  air.  Vicente  introduced  us  to  his  wife 
and  children.  The  whole  scene,  the  unembarrassed 
family  affection,  the  friendly  neighbours  at  their 
doors,  and  the  look  of  contented  poverty  about  the 
houses,  was  the  nearest  approach  to  what  writers 
call  "idyllic"  that  I  have  seen  in  real  life.  Manuel, 
who  was  evidently  the  popular  scapegrace  of  the 
village,  insisted  that  while  the  horses  were  chang- 
ing we  must  share  a  parting  glass  with  him  and 
Vicente.  He  took  us  into  a  tienda  and  called  for 
a  jug  of  wine,  which  we  drank  in  brotherly  fashion 


A   "FAUX  PAS"  167 

out  of  the  same  tumbler.  The  occasion  showed 
us  how  careful  the  stranger  has  to  be  of  the  per- 
sonal dignity  of  these  friendly  people.  James  and 
I  agreed  that  the  good  fellow  mustn't  be  allowed 
to  pay  for  the  wine,  and  when  his  back  was  turned 
I,  being  purse-bearer,  put  a  peseta  down  on  the 
counter.  At  that  moment  Manuel  turned  round 
and  I  shall  never  forget  his  "  No,  Senor  /  "  or  the 
gesture  with  which  he  swept  the  coin  aside.  Oddly 
enough,  almost  the  next  moment  I  was  guilty  of 
a  more  serious  fa  ux  pas.  Somebody  in  the  street 
spoke  to  Vicente  through  the  doorway,  and  he  told 
us  sadly  that  it  was  time  we  returned  to  our  seats 
on  the  coach.  I  said  involuntarily  "  Que  lastima  !  " 
("What  a  pity!"),  and  on  the  words  the  person 
entering  turned  abruptly  and  went  out.  He  was 
the  new  driver,  and  my  unguarded  remark  had 
reflected  upon  his  pride.  Although  in  my  remorse 
I  laid  hands  upon  him,  he  would  not  be  persuaded 
to  drink  with  us,  as  he  had  evidently  intended  to 
do,  and  it  was  not  for  some  time  after  we  had 
started  that  he  emerged  from  a  sullen  silence  and 
accepted  a  cigarette. 

Night  was  falling  as  we  left  Villar-real  and  the 
air  was  very  cold.  Before  us  lay  the  long,  straight, 
white  road  bordered  with  immense  poplars,  and 
flanked  with  apparently  unending  fields  of  corn — 
a  type  of  country  that  we  were  to  see  reproduced 
mile  after  mile  in  Old  and  New  Castile.  We 
passed  through  several  villages  with  alluring  names 
— Gojain,  Urbina,  Luco,  and  Minano — half  seen 


168  A    SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

in  a  dusk  that  was  more  violet  by  contrast  with 
the  pale  yellow  sea  of  corn.  Quite  beautifully, 
the  most  prominent  features  in  each  village  were 
the  church  and  the  threshing-floor  —  the  latter  a 
very  shallow  circular  depression  by  the  roadside, 
mealy  from  the  last  treading.  Already  we  noticed 
a  striking  change  in  the  appearance  of  the  churches  ; 
the  characteristic  portico  and  domed  lantern  were 
gone,  and  the  tower  was  merely  finished  off  with 
a  pyramidal  roof  of  tiles.  In  most  cases  there^ 
were  no  windows  at  all  to  the  north  and  east. 
Looking  back,  the  Cantabrian  Mountains,  rising 
to  grandeur  in  the  peaks  of  Amboto  and  Gorbea, 
made  a  purple  barrier  against  a  clear  sunset. 
Presently  the  lights  of  Vitoria  began  to  twinkle 
among  the  poplars  ahead  ;  we  crossed  a  bridge, 
swung  round  a  corner,  and  clattered  into  a  wide 
open  space  to  the  wailing  of  bugles.  Somewhere 
out  of  sight  soldiers  were  changing  guard. 

Soldiers,  indeed,  and  the  orderly  traces  of 
military  occupation  are  appropriately  enough  the 
"note"  of  the  place  which  will  always  be  associated 
in  English  minds  with  Wellington's  famous  victory. 
We  had  hardly  put  down  our  ruck-sacks  in  a  bed- 
room looking  into  the  pleasant  little  garden  of  the 
Hotel  Pallares,  when  a  chambermaid  brought  us 
an  official  paper  to  fill  up  with  our  names,  ages, 
occupations,  reasons  for  being  in  the  country,  last 
resting-place,  and  destination.  I  think  we  both 
recognised,  then,  what  we  afterwards  found  to  be 
true,  that  on  arriving  at  Vitoria  we  had  definitely 


VITORIA  169 

ended  an  experience.  Whatever  of  beauty  or 
interest  we  were  afterwards  to  see,  with  whatever 
hospitality  we  were  to  be  received,  it  was  a  different 
beauty  and  interest,  a  not  less  real  but  more  formal 
hospitality.  We  had  said  good-bye  to  a  place  and 
a  people  that  were  fundamentally  different  from 
the  rest  of  Spain. 

The  general  impression  I  retain  of  an  all  too 
short  experience  of  the  Basque  provinces,  is  of  an 
almost  perfect  country  for  a  summer  walking  tour 
that  does  not  pretend  to  be  mountain-climbing  and 
is  not  a  gaping  quest  of  "  lions."  The  villages  are 
at  convenient  distances,  and  each  one  has  an  interest 
of  its  own ;  living  is  cheap,  the  roads  are  good,  and, 
by  the  way,  admirably  adapted  for  cycling,  and 
the  climate  is  temperate.  There  are  opportunities, 
too,  for  the  pursuit  of  the  special  hobbies  of  the 
landscape  painter,  the  botanist,  the  fisherman — if 
I  am  lucky  enough  to  go  there  again  I  shall  take 
a  trout-rod — and  the  student  of  out-of-the-way 
customs  and  languages.  And,  as  I  have  so  often 
remarked,  the  people  are  among  the  most  charming 
in  the  world.  In  spite  of  a  merely  elementary 
knowledge  of  the  language,  and  that  unreadiness 
which  comes  of  a  limited  experience  of  foreign 
countries  in  general,  I  have  never  felt  more  at 
home  amongst  any  people  with  whom  I  have 
come  in  contact. 

After  dinner  we  turned  out  into  the  wide,  clean 
streets  to  look  for  a  cafe.  We  found  one  full  of 
soldiers  playing  cards — officers  and  privates  to- 


170 


A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 


gether.  At  intervals  a  piano  in  a  corner  started 
playing  of  its  own  accord,  as  if  to  call  attention 
to  its  existence.  Two  grave,  elderly  waiters,  with 
white  moustaches,  rolled  like  sea-lions  among  the 
little  tables. 


CHAPTER  X 

VITORIA SANTA    MARIA    AND    THE    VILLA    SUSO THE 

BATTLEFIELD     OF     VITORIA MIRANDA     DE     EBRO CIVIL 

GUARDS THE    RED-HEADED  GIRL THE  PASS  OF  PANCORBO 

"  AGUA    FRESCA  !  " THE    PLAINS    OF  OLD  CASTILE THE 

BEGGARS  OF  BURGOS A  CONFUSION  OF   TONGUES BURGOS 

CATHEDRAL THE   COFFER   OF   THE   CID THE   ENGLISHMAN 

OF  BURGOS "BURGOS  s'AMUSE" "A  WEE  BIT  HEATHER" 

THE   TIMID    GENTLEMAN 

TTITORIA  has  been  compared  to  an  English 
*  town.  I  can't  say  that  the  comparison  strikes 
me  as  a  very  happy  one,  but  on  reflection  I  am  at 
a  loss  to  find  a  better  description  of  the  capital  of 
Alava.  The  reason,  I  think,  is  that  it  is  a  little 
wanting  in  character ;  it  might  be  English  because 
it  is  not  remarkably  "  foreign."  It  might,  in  fact, 
as  James  remarked,  "  be  anywhere."  In  trying  to 
describe  Vitoria  one  thinks  unconsciously  rather  of 
the  important  events  with  which  it  is  connected,  as 
one  might  say  of  a  person  that  he  is  not  remarkable 
in  himself,  but  something  remarkable  happened  to 
him.  One  says  of  the  town,  too,  as  one  might  say 
of  such  a  person,  that  it  holds  an  important  posi- 
tion. Indeed,  the  mind  jumps  at  that  with  relief, 
as  at  having  found  something  definite,  and  goes  on 

171 


172  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

to  consider  Vitoria  from  the  military  point  of  view. 
It  is  not  far  from  the  frontier,  it  holds  the  main 
line  of  railway  to  the  capital,  and  commands  the 
mountain  passes  among  which  an  invading  army 
would  have  to  suffer  the  demoralisation  of  guerilla 
attacks.  Supposing  the  French  took  San  Sebastian, 
they  might  be  expected  to  have  what  James  would 
call  a  "  hot  time  "  before  they  reached  Vitoria.  A 
Spanish  army,  I  imagine,  would  concentrate  there 
with  an  open  main  line  of  railway  behind  it  for 
retreat  or  the  hurrying  up  of  reserves,  according  to 
the  fortunes  of  war. 

Vitoria  is  remarkable,  then,  as  the  scene  of  two 
famous  victories — that  of  the  Black  Prince  in  1367, 
and  that  of  AVellington  in  1813 — and  as  holding  an 
important  military  position,  a  key  to  Spain,  rather 
than  for  its  own  intrinsic  character.  And  just  as 
after  having  mentioned  the  history  and  the  import- 
ant position  of  a  person  who  is  rather  wanting  in 
what  we  call  "  temperament,"  one  would  go  on  to 
speak  of  his  estimable  qualities,  so  one  finds  oneself 
describing  Vitoria  as  clean,  tidy,  and  well-regulated, 
with  wide  streets  and  pleasant  squares.  It  is  also, 
as  James  observed,  a  very  "glassy"  town.  The 
impression  given  is  that  the  inhabitants  of  Vitoria 
are  too  well-disciplined  to  need  reminding  of  the 
proverb  about  people  who  live  in  glass  houses, 
and  that  they  have  nothing  to  conceal ;  but 
also  that  Vitoria  must  be  a  very  cold  place  in 
winter. 

Vitoria  is  divided  into  a  Lower  or  New  and  an 


THE  CANTON   DE  SOLEDAD  ;  VITORIA 


VITORIA  173 

Upper  or  Old  Town.  The  Gothic  church  of  San 
Miguel  stands  midway  between  the  two.  The 
Old  Town,  or  Villa  Suso,  is  more  interesting  than 
the  New,  but  still  has  the  look  of  being  periodi- 
cally inspected  by  some  authority  for  the  preser- 
vation of  ancient  monuments.  You  do  not  feel 
that  the  Canton  de  Soledad,  like  the  old  streets  of 
say  Toledo,  has  persisted  because  the  life  that  goes 
on  about  it  is  practically  unaltered  from  the  Middle 
Ages  ;  you  feel  that  it  has  been  spared.  The  sug- 
gestion of  interference,  however  benevolent,  robs 
the  Villa  Suso  of  what  is,  1  think,  the  peculiar 
charm  of  Spain;  the  feeling  that  it  has  escaped 
"  improvement "  not  by  favour  of  a  sentimental 
regard  for  the  past,  but  by  sheer  vitality  of  tradi- 
tion. For  this  reason,  by  the  way,  Wormann's 
description  of  Toledo  as  "a  gigantic  open-air 
museum  "  seems  to  me  singularly  unfortunate.  A 
museum  implies  something  preserved  against  the 
natural  effects  of  time,  and  no  place  could  be 
freer  than  Toledo  from  the  look  of  being  cared 
for ;  it  is  nonchalant  as  the  hills. 

But  in  making  this  distinction  between  the 
Old  Town  of  Vitoria  and  the  more  characteristic 
cities  of  Spain,  I  do  not  mean  that  the  former  is 
uninteresting.  Granting  that  it  looks  preserved,  it 
was  well  worth  preserving,  and  in  the  narrow 
streets  and  stairways  above  San  Miguel  there  are 
many  "bits"  to  delight  the  artist.  From  this 
eminence  the  angular  belfries  of  the  buildings 
below,  with  their  delicate  finials  of  wrought 


174  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

iron,   have   a   singularly   beautiful   effect    against 
the  sky. 

The  cathedral  of  Santa  Maria  stands  at  the 
highest  point  of  the  Villa  Suso.  It  was  built  in 
the  twelfth  century,  but  has  suffered  badly  from 
restoration.  There  are  some  fine  but  mutilated 
carvings  in  the  great  porch  under  the  modern 
tower,  and  the  pillars  and  vaulting  of  the  nave  are 
in  a  severe  Gothic,  which  recalls  the  best  examples 
of  our  Early  English,  though,  with  childish  folly, 
the  plinths  of  the  pillars  have  been  painted  to 
imitate  marble.  As  is  usual,  however,  in  Spanish 
churches,  amongst  the  heartbreaking  tomfoolery 
of  successive  restorers  there  are  beautiful  things 
in  Santa  Maria.  For  example,  in  a  small  chapel 
where,  for  a  wonder,  the  altar  was  gracefully 
decorated  with  white  lilies,  we  found  a  sanctuary 
lamp  of  copper,  whether  ancient  or  modern  I  don't 
know,  that  was  in  every  way  admirable.  In  this 
chapel  there  are  some  good  though  damaged 
sculptured  tombs,  and  in  calling  our  attention  to 
them  the  sacristan  gave  us  an  illustration  of  the 
pleasure  the  Spaniard  takes  in  some  quite  trivial 
detail  or  accidental  effect.  With  a  great  air  of 
mystery  he  drew  a  curtain  over  the  window  and, 
producing  an  end  of  candle,  lit  and  held  it  behind 
the  features  of  the  recumbent  figures,  which  are 
carved  in  alabaster,  to  show  that  they  were  trans- 
lucent. It  would  be  unfair  to  generalise  from  one 
ignorant  sacristan,  but  he  seemed  to  reproduce  in 
a  small  way  the  Spanish — and  perhaps  the  Southern 


VITORIA  175 

— regard  for  works  of  art.  There  is  in  it  a  sincere 
and  intense  appreciation  of  colour  and  surface  and 
texture  and  richness  of  material,  with  an  almost 
entire  absence  of  the  sense  of  form  and  proportion. 
Generally  speaking,  the  Spanish  church  or  cathe- 
dral, however  beautiful  it  may  be  in  balance  and 
design,  is  regarded  by  the  natives  merely  as  a  shell 
containing  treasures.  Of  the  treasures  themselves 
they  have  often  the  most  discriminating  apprecia- 
tion. When,  for  example,  our  sacristan  showed 
us  the  vestments,  he  changed  from  a  perfunctory 
channel  of  stale  information  to  an  enthusiastic  and 
critical  connoisseur.  He  handled  the  stuffs  as  if 
he  loved  them,  with  a  keen  interest  in  workman- 
ship, comparing  patterns,  and  suggesting  periods 
not  from  hearsay  but  using  his  own  judgment,  and 
calling  our  attention  to  those  he  liked  best.  Over 
and  over  again  we  found  this  to  be  the  case ;  that 
in  order  to  reach  the  live  man,  with  tastes  of  his 
own,  under  the  bored  official,  we  had  to  wait  for 
the  vestments. 

Quite  in  keeping  with  the  spick-and-span 
regularity  of  the  streets  of  Vitoria,  the  social 
atmosphere  seems  to  be  a  combination  of  those  of 
the  garrison  and  the  cathedral  town.  One  would 
expect  to  find  good  schools  for  young  ladies  there 
—and  indeed  there  is  an  academy  of  music.  As 
we  passed  down  the  Calle  de  Santa  Maria,  some- 
body behind  the  white-curtained  windows  of  the 
house  at  the  corner  was  brilliantly  playing  the 
Sixth  Polonaise  of  Chopin. 


176  A    SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

Vitoria  made  us  feel  rather  disreputable,  and 
we  decided  to  go  on  to  Burgos  at  midday.  We 
bought  some  bread  and  fruit  and  a  bottle  of  wine, 
and  made  our  luncheon  in  the  waiting-room  of  the 
station.  Here  we  began  to  see  a  difference  in  the 
types  of  people.  The  Basque  features  were  less  in 
evidence,  the  mantilla  was  more  frequent,  and  we 
saw  one  or  two  men  wearing  the  broad-brimmed 
sombrero,  and  the  brightly- coloured  blanket  slung 
over  the  shoulders,  which  are  made  familiar  by 
pictures  of  Spain.  We  noticed  that  the  ends  of 
the  blanket  are  sometimes  turned  over  to  form 
large  and  convenient  pockets  in  which  the  owner 
can  carry  his  personal  belongings,  so  that  he  has 
cloak,  night-covering,  and  knapsack  in  one. 

The  Concha  of  Alava  was  evidently  once  the 
bed  of  a  lake.  It  is  now  level  cornland,  surrounde< 
by  distant  mountains  and  intersected  by  a  road, 
with  tall  poplars,  and  a  small  river,  the  Zadorra, 
which  may  be  supposed  to  have  drained  off  the 
waters  of  the  prehistoric  lake  into  the  Ebro.  Even 
to-day  the  river,  with  its  low  banks  of  terraced 
mud,  resembles  the  deep-water  channel  of  a  tidal 
basin  when  the  tide  is  out.  The  railway  crosses 
the  famous  battlefield,  about  five  miles  west  of  the 
town,  and  the  two  villages  of  Ariiiez  and  Gomecha, 
where  the  French  made  their  final  stand,  can  be 
seen  on  the  road  to  the  south  of  the  line.  Beyond 
Nanclares  the  encircling  hills  close  in  to  form 
the  narrow  pass  of  Puebla  de  Arganzon,  through 
which  Wellington  delivered  his  opening  attack 


CIVIL   GUARDS 


177 


on  that  rainy  morning  of  June  21.  Everything 
looked  peaceful  enough  under  the  brilliant  sun 
on  the  morning  of  our  journey.  Against  the  sea 
of  corn,  which  may  be  considered  to  have  taken 
the  place  of  the  waters  of  the  ancient  lake,  the 
poplars  told  with  an  astonishing  value  of  colour. 
They  looked  like  inlaid  enamel.  It  is  perhaps 
only  in  these  Southern  lands,  where  it  is  no  longer 
the  general  background,  that  green  gets  a  chance 
to  prove  how  beautiful  it  is.  The  little  walled 
towns  of  crumbling  red  stone  emerged  like  islands, 
and  the  far  hills  were  faintly  purple  in  the  heat 
haze  which  hung  quivering  over  the  land. 

We  had  an  hour  to  wait  at  Miranda  de  Ebro, 
the  junction  between  the  main  line  and  the  railways 
to  Bilbao  and  Zaragoza.  The  word  "  Miranda " 
may  without  violence  be  translated  to  mean 
"looking  round,"  and  indeed  the  place  is  ad- 
mirably suited  for  that  purpose.  The  station  was 
crowded  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  people, 
the  most  prominent  among  them  being  about 
twenty  Civil  Guards,  who  apparently  were  chang- 
ing quarters.  These  men  are  the  pick  of  the 
Spanish  army,  and  in  organisation  and  duties  they 
resemble  the  Irish  Constabulary.  They  are  said 
to  be  absolutely  unbribable,  they  are  forbidden 
under  any  circumstances  to  accept  a  reward,  and, 
as  James  acutely  observed,  they  are  the  only 
uniformed  men  in  Spain  who  look  as  if  they 
got  their  wages  regularly.  "  They  look,  too,"  he 
added,  "  as  if  they  saw  that  they  got  them."  The 


12 


\ 


178  A    SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

Civil  Guards  wear  a  dark  blue  uniform  with  red 
piping,  a  curious  three-cornered  glazed  hat  turned 
up  at  the  back,  just  where  one  would  suppose 
shade  to  be  needed,  and  yellow  belts  and  rifle- 
slings  ;  a  combination  of  colour  which  significantly 
reminds  one  of  hornets.  But  in  spite  of  their 
menacing  appearance  they  are  quiet  and  courteous 
in  their  manners,  though  uncompromising  in  the 
execution  of  their  duties.  They  are  said  to  have  a 
grimly  short  way  with  persistently  troublesome 
characters.  Having  arrested  a  criminal,  they  take 
him  for  a  walk  in  the  mountains,  and,  arrived  at  a 
lonely  spot,  invite  him  to  go  on  ahead.  The  sequel 
is  a  formal  report  to  the  authorities,  "  Prisoner 
shot  while  attempting  to  escape."  The  relief  of 
Bilbao  by  ten  thousand  Civil  Guards  during  the 
last  Carlist  war  was  one  of  the  few  occasions  when 
they  have  been  used  as  a  purely  military  force. 

Rural  policemen  couldn't  have  looked  milder 
than  the  group  of  Civil  Guards  we  saw  on  the 
platform  of  Miranda.  They  were  surrounded  by 
bundles  and  pots  and  pans,  and  several  of  them 
carried  bird-cages,  and  large  bunches  of  flowers. 
I  suppose  it  is  because  these  men  are  picked  for 
their  superior  intelligence  and  physique  that  they 
looked  as  if  they  belonged  to  a  different  race  from 
the  people  about  them. 

There  is  something  peculiarly  friendly  about  a 
Spanish  railway  station.  Owing  to  the  long  waits 
and  bad  connections  of  the  third-class  trains,  the 
low  platforms  are  always  crowded  with  picnicking 


THE   RED-HEADED    GIRL         179 

people,  giving  the  impression  that  the  station  is 
intended  for  social  gatherings  rather  than  as  a 
place  of  departure  and  arrival.  Our  train  divided 
into  two  halves,  with  a  gap  in  the  middle,  appa- 
rently for  no  reason  but  to  allow  people  to  cross 
the  line  freely.  They  took  full  advantage  of  this 
convenience,  sitting  down  on  the  platform  or  the 
permanent  way  indifferently.  The  refreshment- 
room  was  full,  and,  as  at  an  English  station,  there 
were  the  little  groups  of  people  excited  over  the 
possibility  of  losing  the  train,  which  stood  in  two 
halves,  and  without  an  engine,  before  their  eyes. 
There  were  also  the  usual  people  with  a  fatal 
passion  for  the  wrong  train. 

There  were,  for  example,  a  roving  band  of 
laughing  and  irresponsible  young  women,  includ- 
ing one  with  magnificent  Venetian  red  hair,  and 
the  dazzling  complexion  that  goes  with  it.  With 
their  gay  frocks,  flower- bedecked  heads,  fans,  and 
white  shoes,  they  looked  as  if  they  had  just  come 
out  of  a  ball-room  to  take  the  air,  and  they  moved 
as  if  the  measure  of  the  last  waltz  were  tingling  in 
their  pulses.  Hanging  upon  each  other,  and  led 
by  the  inflammatory  head  like  a  torch  of  revolution, 
they  paced  up  and  down  the  platform  with  flirting 
fans,  and  challenging  glances  to  right  and  left, 
fluttering  round  the  Civil  Guards  like  foam  round 
rocks,  tossing  their  chins,  and  flinging  back  some 
chaffing  retort  to  any  young  man  who  was  bold 
enough  to  address  them.  I  lost  sight  of  them  for 
a  time,  and  the  platform  was  perceptibly  duller 


180  A    SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

and  colder,  but  presently,  as  I  ^vas  passing  down 
the  train  to  look  for  the  compartment  where  I  had 
left  James  half  asleep,  the  girls  broke  from  it  like 
sudden  Spring,  and  came  clambering  down  the 
high  footboard,  with  laughter  and  little  cries  of 
mock  terror.  They  were  followed  by  James, 
beaming  affably  and  swelling  with  importance.  "  I 
say,"  he  cried,  "  they  want  to  go  to  Bilbao,  and  I 
told  them  this  wasn't  the  right  train."  The  poor 
fellow  was  evidently  torn  between  pride  at  being 
able  to  put  them  right,  and  pain  at  losing  their 
exhilarating  company.  At  this  moment  a  bell 
rang  furiously,  and  the  bevy  of  damsels  scampered 
away,  and  presumably  caught  their  train,  for  we 
saw  them  no  more. 

Except  for  the  purpose  of  "  looking  round," 
Miranda  does  not  seem  to  be  remarkable,  though 
there  is  said  to  be  an  interesting  church  on  the  left 
bank  of  the  Ebro.  We  crossed  the  muddy  river, 
which  it  was  difficult  to  believe  was  bound  for 
the  Mediterranean,  and  presently  were  ascending 
through  the  rocky  and  precipitous  Pass  of  Pan- 
corbo,  which  forms,  as  it  were,  a  natural  stairway, 
with  two  landings,  to  the  wide,  mountain-ringed 
plain  of  Old  Castile.  In  the  narrow  flight  be- 
tween the  two  landings,  road,  rail,  and  the  river 
Oroncillo,  an  affluent  of  the  Ebro,  come  together 
with  magnificent  effect.  Far  below  on  the  white, 
poplar-fringed  road,  which  apparently  emerges 
from  a  tunnel  under  the  railway,  we  saw  the 
solitary  figure  of  a  priest  painfully  making  his  way 


THE   PASS   OF   PANCORBO        181 

through  the  dust  and  heat  in  the  direction  of 
Miranda. 

The  dusty-red  village  of  Pancorbo,  overlooked 
by  two  ruined  castles,  stands  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Pass.  The  little  railway  station  is  pleasantly 
shaded  with  trees,  and  here  we  heard  for  the  first 
time,  as  if  to  warn  us  of  the  character  of  the 
country  we  were  entering  upon,  that  piercing, 
long-drawn  cry  of  the  water-sellers,  "  A-gua 
fresco, ! "  which  by  night  and  day  haunts  the  tra- 
veller throughout  the  parched  interior  of  Spain. 

The  true  character  of  this  country,  as  of  its 
people,  is  not  to  be  appreciated  in  the  flat  hours 
of  a  midsummer  afternoon.  At  this  time  of  day 
the  spirit  of  the  land,  the  genius  loci,  seems  to  be 
withdrawn  into  the  far,  faint  hills,  as  the  soul  of 
a  people  shrinks  under  the  heat  and  glare  of  noon, 
leaving  only  an  arid  monotony  of  surface,  a  tired 
body  of  earth,  as  it  were.  I  have  before  me  a 
map  of  Spain,  buff-tinted,  with  a  fine  grey  shading 
of  sierras.  It  not  unfairly  represents  the  actual 
appearance  of  Castile  in  full  daylight.  It  is  em- 
phatically a  landscape  depending  upon  moods  and 
conditions ;  it  needs  the  collaboration  of  the  sky 
and  the  atmosphere ;  at  evening,  or  under  the 
moon,  or  most  of  all  at  early  dawn,  it  yields,  like 
a  strong  nature  at  the  moment  of  surrender,  a 
charm  so  poignant  that  one  remembers  only  with 
a  faint  feeling  of  remorse,  as  at  acquiescence  in 
a  lower  standard  of  beauty,  one's  delight  in  the 
obvious  picturesqueness  of  the  Basque  provinces. 


182 


A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 


Although  we  entered  Castile  at  the  wrong  time 
of  day,  we  were  both  warned  against  hasty  im- 
pressions by  a  similar  experience  in  a  smaller  way, 
which  we  had  seen  repeated  over  and  over  again 
in  people  on  their  first  coming  from  Devon  into 
Cornwall.  Almost  invariably  the  latter  county— 
or  at  least  its  interior — disappoints  and  frequently 
repels  them.  They  sigh  for  the  trees  and  the  rich 
undergrowth,  the  melodramatic  water-leaps  and 
beetling  banks  of  the  Dart  and  the  Torridge ;  the 
ready-made  mise-en-scene,  in  fact,  of  a  dozen  full- 
blooded  romances  of  the  primitive  passions.  They 
cannot  all  at  once  respond  to  the  more  subtle 
appeal  of  treeless  downs,  bare  granite  and  sullen 
hills,  to  what  at  first  affects  them  as  the  mere 
anatomy  of  a  landscape.  But  sooner  or  later,  if 
they  have  any  imagination  at  all,  they  succumb, 
and  I  have  heard  it  said  again  and  again  by  visitors 
to  Cornwall,  that  on  their  return  to  Devon  it 
struck  them  as  a  little  vulgar.  I  feel  that  I  am 
quoting  Cornwall  too  often  in  these  notes,  but  in 
making  comparisons  it  is  natural  to  turn  to  the 
familiar,  and,  as  a  matter  of  bare  fact,  the  differ- 
ence between  Vizcaya  and  Castile  reproduces  on 
a  grander  scale  the  difference  between  the  two 
English  counties  I  have  named.  Indeed,  sub- 
stitute corn  for  sea,  and  the  distant  sierras  as  we 
saw  them  from  the  train  bore  a  remarkable  re- 
semblance to  the  long  line  of  coast,  visible  as  I 
write,  from  St.  Ives  Bay  to  Trevose  Head. 

Admitting  that  full  daylight  is  not  the  happiest 


THE   PLAINS   OF   OLD   CASTILE    183 

condition  for  a  first  impression  of  Castile,  there 
is  to  the  imagination  a  certain  dignity  in  the  very 
absence  of  the  more  obvious  elements  of  beauty, 
It  is  as  if  the  land,  with  a  noble  renunciation,  were 
content  to  be  the  mere  surface,  the  waiting  vessel, 
for  that  finer  beauty  which  falls  from  the  sky. 
Is  it  fantastic  to  say  that  this  recalls  the  new 
and  wiser  attitude  of  landscape  painters  to  nature, 
which  began,  I  suppose,  with  Turner?  I  mean 
the  abandonment  of  picturesque  "  views,"  the  re- 
cognition that  light  itself  is  the  protagonist,  and 
that  the  objects  upon  which  it  falls  are  merely 
circumstances  in  the  making  of  a  picture ;  that 
beauty  is  finally  a  matter  of  moods  and  conditions, 
that  wherever  there  are  broad  surfaces  of  earth, 
if  only  the  sands  of  the  desert,  or  sea,  or  snow, 
the  soul  of  beauty  may  descend  and  make  her 
dwelling.  Whether  or  not  the  results  of  this 
new  attitude  are  better  than  those  which  pro- 
ceeded from  the  conceptions  of  scenes  and  objects 
as  intrinsically  beautiful,  it  certainly  corresponds 
in  a  curious  way  with  the  belief,  so  often  lost 
and  found,  and  only  now  returning  with  renewed 
conviction,  and  the  support  of  science,  that  the 
invisible  is  the  reality  and  the  material  universe 
only  its  accidents. 

There  is  something  profoundly  significant  to 
the  imagination,  too,  in  the  stern  reduction  of  the 
actual  crops  of  Castile  to  the  bare  essentials  of 
human  food.  From  this  bleak  table-land  two 
thousand  feet  above  the  sea,  these  "  tierras  de  pan 


184 


A    SPANISH    HOLIDAY 


Ikvar"  man  with  infinite  labour  is  able  to  win 
the  eternal  symbols  of  life,  bread  and  a  little 
wine. 

The  train  crawled  over  the  interminable  sea  of 
corn  at  a  speed  of  fifteen  miles  an  hour.  The 
passengers  lined  the  corridor  and  hung  out  of  the 
windows  for  air,  and  at  intervals  the  guard  climbed 
along  the  footboard — perilously  near  to  the  tele- 
graph poles,  each  marked  with  the  distance  in 
kilometres  from  the  capital,  as  if  mere  distance 
were  the  only  definite  thing  for  the  mind  to  grasp 
in  this  featureless  monotony  of  pale  corn  and 
tawny  distant  hills.  Whenever  the  guard  entered 
our  compartment  he  never  omitted  to  greet  us 
with  "  Buenas  tardes."  Two  or  three  times 
during  the  journey  we  stopped  at  sun-baked 
villages  of  red  stone  where  women  and  boys,  with 
baskets  of  fruit  or  cool  jars  of  wine  and  water, 
waited  on  the  platform  of  the  station  which  was 
lined  with  a  welcome  row  of  poplars.  At  Santa 
Olalla  the  level  plain  was  broken  by  hills,  and 
for  a  time  we  clattered  through  tunnels.  Then 
again  the  monotonous  expanse  of  corn,  until  at 
five  o'clock  we  saw  the  spires  of  Burgos  Cathedral 
rising  in  the  distance  on  the  right-hand  side. 

The  city  of  Burgos  lies  in  an  oasis  of  poplar 
trees,  overlooked  by  a  barren  hill  with  ruined 
fortifications,  on  the  Arlanzon,  which  finally  flows 
into  the  Duero.  The  splendid  avenues  lining  the 
river  trail  off  into  dusty  roads  at  either  end,  so 
that  the  city  resembles  a  beautiful  woman,  proud, 


,,',''  -  "  «          ^  e 


THE    BEGGARS   OF   BURGOS      185 

luxurious,  and  indolent,  with  magnificent  jewels 
and  draggled  skirts.  The  climate  of  Burgos  is 
said  to  be  the  worst  in  Spain,  and  gives  rise  to 
the  popular  saying,  "  Nueve  meses  de  invierno,  tres 
de  infierno "  ("  Nine  months  of  Winter,  three  of 
Hell ").  The  greater  part  of  the  city  lies  on  the 
right  or  north  bank  of  the  river,  furthest  from 
the  railway,  and  in  crossing  the  shady  Paseo  from 
the  station  to  the  bridge  of  Santa  Maria  we  were 
assailed  at  intervals  by  five  beggars,  the  first  we 
had  encountered  since  coming  to  the  country. 
The  river  at  this  time  of  year  fills  only  a  third  of 
its  bed,  so  that,  as  we  stood  on  the  five-arched 
bridge,  I  found  myself  wondering  at  its  length  and 
solidity.  But  we  were  told  that  after  heavy  rains 
the  thread  of  water  becomes  a  roaring  flood,  and 
this  wide  range  of  moods  is  well  in  keeping  with 
the  character  of  the  city,  which  reminds  one  of  a 
passionate  nature  for  the  moment  brooding  with 
languid  pulses.  Immediately  fronting  the  bridge 
is  the  Arco  de  Santa  Maria,  a  castellated  and  loop- 
holed  gateway  of  yellow  stone,  with  statues  in 
niches,  which  is  the  main  entrance  to  the  city. 
The  towers  and  lantern  of  the  cathedral  are 
visible  above  it. 

Our  first  care,  however,  was  to  get  rid  of  our 
burdens,  and,  pursued  by  beggars,  we  followed  the 
pleasant  Paseo  del  Espolon  to  the  hotel  we  had 
been  recommended.  Here  we  received  the  im- 
pression that  we  were  not  going  to  be  treated 
fairly,  an  impression  which  after  events  persuaded 


186  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

me  was  due  chiefly  to  a  confusion  of  tongues.  The 
proprietor,  or  manager,  who  seemed  to  be  suffer- 
ing from  chronic  alcoholism,  happened  to  be  a 
Frenchman  with  a  rather  morose  manner,  and 
though  he  spoke  Spanish  like  a  native,  he  insisted 
that  his  own  language  would  be  easier  for  us  to 
understand.  The  result  was  a  curious  illustration 
of  the  way  one  language  drives  out  another  in  the 
case  of  a  person  imperfectly  acquainted  with  both. 
1  knew  considerably  less  Spanish  than  French,  but 
having  painfully  practised  the  former  for  the  last 
fortnight  or  so,  I  found  it  next  to  impossible  to 
speak  the  latter  intelligibly,  and  the  result  was  a 
misunderstanding  of  terms.  We  decided,  there- 
fore, only  to  take  a  room  for  the  night  at  the 
hotel  and  to  dine  and  make  arrangements  for  the 
morrow  elsewhere. 

The  Cathedral  of  Burgos  overpowers  the 
imagination  by  its  exuberant  vitality.  One  ap- 
proaches it  with  a  dozen  reservations,  with  a  dozen 
criticisms  on  the  tongue,  and  is  left  speechless. 
As  a  whole  it  carries  off  triumphantly  the  defects, 
debasements,  and  puerilities  of  its  parts  as  an  over- 
whelming personality  absolves  defects  of  character 
and  manner  which  would  be  fatal  to  an  ordinary 
man  or  woman.  You  are  so  thrilled  and  exalted 
by  the  effect  of  the  cathedral  that  you  cannot 
fairly  judge,  or  even  see  the  cathedral  itself. 
Built  of  a  limestone  that  is  not  quite  marble,  it 
emerges  from  the  flank  of  the  hill  like  an  'outcrop 
of  some  crystalline  substance,  quivering  with  life, 


BURGOS   CATHEDRAL  187 

that  has  not  yet  hardened  into  immobility ;  and 
this  illusion  of  growth,  that  it  is  still  in  process  of 
becoming,  prevents  the  eye  from  dwelling  upon 
the  forms  and  outlines,  often  trivial  and  meaning- 
less, into  which  it  is  already  arrested.  In  cold 
blood  and  away  from  the  cathedral  one  says  that 
it  is  a  jumble  of  styles,  that  it  is  over-florid,  and 
that  its  great  lantern  is  mere  confectionery,  but  in 
the  excitement  of  its  presence  one  forgets  these 
objections.  For  it  is  the  excitement  and  exaltation 
of  the  religious  emotion  that  Burgos  Cathedral 
embodies  rather  than  its  peace  and  humility;  it 
is  a  Te  Deum  in  stone,  and  not  by  any  means 
a  Nunc  Dimittis.  It  depends,  so  to  speak,  upon 
pace  and  gusto;  a  momentary  flagging  in  the 
imagination  of  its  builders  would  have  resulted 
in  a  disastrous  vulgarity.  It  is  only  not  vulgar 
because  it  is  too  alive. 

More  than  any  building  I  saw  in  Spain  the 
Cathedral  of  Burgos  seems  to  me  to  reflect  and 
embody  the  Spanish  character.  It  recalls  all  the 
epithets  one  has  ever  heard  applied  to  Spain ;  the 
sound  and  the  colour  and  the  magnificence  which 
are  associated  with  her  intrusion  into  the  history 
of  the  world.  There  is  in  the  cathedral  more  than 
a  flavour  of  that  brutality,  the  lees  of  the  Latin 
character,  which  seems  to  have  settled  in  this 
westernmost  division  of  the  Latin  race  as  the  sono- 
rity of  the  Latin  tongue  has  passed  into  the  Spanish 
language.  Whether  from  geographical  position 
Spain  seems  to  have  missed  some  refining  influence 


188  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

— possibly  Greek — which  the  other  inheritors  of 
the  same  ancestry  have  enjoyed,  and  she  resembles 
Italy  chiefly  in  those  qualities  which  one  thinks  of 
as  peculiarly  Roman.  It  would  be  easy,  I  suppose, 
to  push  the  distinction  too  far  ;  but  the  persistence 
of  the  ancestral  character  with  its  virtues  and  de- 
fects is  strikingly  illustrated  in  Spanish  art  as  com- 
pared with  Italian  by  an  absence,  and  in  Spanish 
life  by  a  survival.  The  striking  difference  between 
Spanish  and  Italian  art  is  the  entire  absence  from 
the  former  of  the  peculiar  idealism  which  found 
its  most  remarkable  but  not  unique  expression  in 
Botticelli ;  and  in  Spanish  life  the  blood-lust  of  the 
Roman  arena  survives  in  the  national  institution 
of  the  bull-fight.  The  absence  and  the  survival 
are  probably  due  to  the  same  reason — the  lack  of 
some  contact  with  another  race,  inspiring  in  the 
one  case  and  inhibitory  in  the  other.  In  compari- 
son with  Italy  the  art  and  the  life  of  Spain  suffer  a 
loss  which — if  the  speculation  is  not  a  vain  one— 
the  art  and  the  life  of  England  might  have  been 
supposed  to  suffer  if  they  had  escaped  the  influence 
of  that  vague  thing  we  call  the  Celtic  element. 
One  strange  influence  out  of  all  the  nations  of 
Europe  Spain  did  suffer,  but  of  that  we  had  as  yet 
seen  no  traces. 

It  is  then  by  vigour  and  exuberance  rather  than 
by  subtlety  and  reserve  that  Burgos  Cathedral 
appeals  to  the  imagination.  And  for  this  reason  it 
is  able  to  bear  a  richness,  a  rankness  of  ornament 
which  would  be  intolerable  in  a  building  of  less 


BURGOS   CATHEDRAL  189 

vitality,  of  colder  temperament — as  the  Spaniard 
can  use  a  floridity  of  manner  which  would  be  offen- 
sive in  an  Englishman.  Something  the  cathedral 
owes  to  its  position ;  you  cannot  weigh  and  con- 
sider it  as  a  whole  in  a  gradual  approach;  you 
come  upon  it  suddenly  from  among  houses  which 
crowd  upon  it  as  if  in  a  passion  of  adoration.  The 
result  is  that  you  are  within  the  magnetic  circle  of 
its  influence,  and  your  emotions  are  played  upon 
before  you  have  time  to  use  your  judgment. 

We  entered  the  cathedral  by  one  of  the  doors 
in  the  western  facade.  A  pale  sacristan,  one  of 
those  ageless,  sexless  little  creatures  that  grow  up 
in  the  shadow  of  ancient  buildings,  came  forward, 
and  dipping  his  fingers  into  the  stoup  touched  ours 
with  an  appealing  timidity  which  suggested  unfortu- 
nate and  humiliating  experiences  of  our  countrymen. 
I  shall  not  easily  forget  his  shy  smile  of  relief.  He 
spoke  enough  English  for  his  office,  having  learned 
the  language,  he  said,  entirely  from  visitors  to  the 
cathedral.  It  is  a  little  difficult  to  realise,  by  the 
way,  that  this  extravagant  rhapsody  in  stone,  so 
Southern  in  its  effect,  was  founded  by  an  English- 
man, Bishop  Maurice,  early  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury. It  is  true  that  the  sober  Gothic  of  that 
period  can  still  be  traced  in  the  transepts  and  in 
the  main  piers  and  arches  of  the  nave ;  but  it  has 
been  everywhere  seized  upon  by  the  restless  fancy 
of  later  workers.  The  general  impression  of  the 
interior  is  that  of  a  confused  richness  in  a  light  but 
little  tempered  from  that  of  the  outer  world.  The 


190  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

choir  and  the  capilla  mayor  or  chancel  are  connected 
by  bronze  screens  to  form  a  church  within  a  church, 
filling  the  nave  and  preventing  a  clear  appreciation 
of  its  size  and  proportions.  One  hears — without 
taking  in  the  sense  of  it— that  the  nave  is  three 
hundred  feet  long.  Everywhere  the  attempt  to 
come  to  close  grips  with  the  building  as  unity  is 
defeated  by  some  excited  and  exciting  piece  of 
decoration,  as  if  the  intention  were  to  distract  the 
senses  from  anything  approaching  to  a  calm  judg- 
ment. Not  only  vision  is  affected;  indeed,  my 
visual  memory  of  the  interior  of  Burgos  Cathedral 
is  always  accompanied  by  a  confused  sound  of 
music,  though  no  music  was  going  on  at  the  time 
of  our  first  visit.  Hearing  and  vision  are  so 
curiously  mingled  in  the  retrospect  that  it  is  like 
standing  under  a  belfry  and  trying  to  disentangle 
the  true  note  of  the  bells  from  a  clamour  of 
harmonics. 

Following  our  guide,  we  lost  not  only  the  sense 
of  size  and  proportion  but  that  of  direction  as  well, 
and  wandered  as  if  in  a  forest.  We  visited  chapel 
after  chapel,  each  containing  something  of  beauty 
and  something  in  a  taste  that  only  the  general 
bewilderment  of  our  senses  prevented  from  seem- 
ing deplorable.  Certain  things  emerge  from  the 
jumble  of  impressions  with  welcome  clearness  :  the 
exquisite  7*etablo  of  dulled  red  and  gold  in  the 
Chapel  of  St.  Ana,  a  Flemish  triptych  and  the 
magnificent  tombs  of  the  founder  and  his  wife  in 
the  Chapel  of  the  Constable ;  the  Golden  Staircase, 


BURGOS   CATHEDRAL  191 

which  ascends  in  two  double  flights  to  the  door 
opening  on  the  hillside  at  the  end  of  the  north 
transept,  the  sculptured  scenes  from  the  Passion 
behind  the  chancel — not  really  good,  but  somehow 
absolved  by  the  general  magnificence ;  the  metal- 
sheathed  figure  of  Bishop  Maurice  in  the  choir; 
and  over  all  the  amazing  octagonal  lantern,  filled 
with  light  and  feverish  ornament,  so  hopelessly 
wrong  by  any  standard  save  that  of  a  bride-cake, 
and  yet  so  triumphantly  successful  as  the  crown 
and  summing  up  of  the  whole  agitating  interior. 

"  You  cannot  be  in  the  procession  and  look  out 
of  the  window,"  and  in  Burgos  Cathedral  you  are 
emphatically  in  the  procession,  carried  away  by  its 
life  and  movement,  as  if  you  saw  it  growing  under 
the  hands  of  the  builders.  You  are  thus  left  with 
a  sense  of  infinite  possibilities,  of  unexplored  wealth, 
actual  or  in  process  of  becoming ;  you  never,  or  at 
least  not  after  a  dozen  visits,  stand  still  and  say, 
"  There  it  is,  the  whole  thing."  If  I  returned  to 
Burgos  I  should  be  surprised  to  find  it  the  same ; 
I  should  expect  to  find  that  the  tracery  in  the 
Chapel  of  the  Constable  had  gone  on  blossoming 
and  branching  in  my  absence. 

The  sympathetic  and  self-effacing  little  sacri- 
stan did  his  best  to  keep  some  order  in  our  bewil- 
dered impressions  with  a  word  or  a  gesture  at  the 
right  moment,  as  a  clever  guide  would  help  dizzy 
climbers  over  a  difficult  place  by  calling  their 
attention  to  the  quiet  loveliness  of  a  flower.  He 
murmured  over  the  exquisite  carving  of  the  choir 


192  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

stalls,  and  caressed  the  thick,  brown,  illuminated 
pages  of  the  great  books  of  Offices,  glancing  at  us 
with  his  pale,  narrow  smile  as  if  to  make  sure  that 
we  had  sufficiently  rested  our  eyes  and  cleared  our 
brains  for  the  next  impression.  I  almost  expected 
him  to  feel  my  pulse.  When  he  took  us  out  into 
the  grave  early  fourteenth-century  cloisters  it  was 
like  a  plunge  into  cool  water  after  feverish  dreams, 
and  we  found  ourselves  gazing  up  at  the  Coffer  of 
the  Cid  on  the  wall  of  the  ante-room  to  the  chapter- 
house with  exaggerated  interest,  as  if  we  had  at 
last  come  upon  something  which  we  could  grasp 
in  its  entirety.  This  great  iron-clamped  coffer  of 
wood  and  leather  is  connected  with  a  story  which 
recalls  the  methods  of  modern  finance.  Being  in 
want  of  money,  the  hero  of  Castile  filled  the  trunk 
with  sand  and  pledged  it  to  the  Jews  as  gold  for  a 
loan  of  six  hundred  marks,  which  he  afterwards 
honestly  repaid. 

We  found  an  hotel  at  which  to  dine  in  a 
narrow  street  not  far  from  the  cathedral.  As 
we  hesitated  before  a  dirty  doorway,  wondering 
if  it  was  the  right  entrance,  a  dwarf  darted  out 
as  if  he  had  been  a  waiting  spider  and  led  us 
up  a  dark  staircase  into  a  gloomy  parlour,  where 
the  most  prominent  object  on  the  round  table 
was  a  copy  of  London  Opinion.  Here  we  were 
joined  by  the  stout,  smiling  proprietress,  who  en- 
gaged us  in  friendly  conversation.  Our  intention 
in  dining  away  from  the  hotel  where  we  had 
taken  a  room  was  to  try  to  find  lodgings  for 


THE   ENGLISHMAN    OF   BURGOS    193 

the  morrow  at  more  reasonable  terms,  but  we 
were  no  match  for  the  lady  in  finesse.  Her  first 
question  was,  "  Where  are  you  stopping  to-night, 
and  what  do  they  charge  you  ? "  We  "  hedged," 
and  she  then  proposed  a  sum  so  extravagant  for 
her  own  hospitality  that  we  hastily  assured  her 
that  we  had  merely  compared  notes  out  of  a  desire 
for  general  information.  We  had  an  amusing 
experience  at  the  dinner-table.  After  we  had 
taken  our  places  a  young  man,  whose  appearance 
was  so  unexpectedly  English  that  I'm  afraid  we 
both  stared  at  him  rather  rudely,  entered  the 
comedor.  He  gave  us  the  usual  native  greeting 
and  sat  down  immediately  opposite.  We  waited 
for  him  to  address  us  in  our  own  language,  but 
nothing  followed.  There  was  no  particular  reason, 
of  course,  why  compatriots  meeting  in  a  strange 
land  should  enter  into  conversation,  but  under  the 
circumstances  the  silence  seemed  unnatural.  It 
would  have  been  easier  to  speak  than  not  to 
speak.  The  stranger,  who  looked  something  be- 
tween a  priest  in  mufti  and  the  more  solemn 
kind  of  literary  man,  had  a  long,  shorn  face  with 
unsmiling  lips  but  a  humorous  twinkle  in  his 
eyes  that  rather  attracted  us,  and  both  James 
and  I  were  in  the  mood  for  talking  to  him;  but 
as  from  his  manner  to  the  servants  he  was 
evidently  an  older  guest  than  ourselves,  we  felt 
that  he  ought  to  make  the  first  advance.  As 
he  didn't  we  were  determined  that  we  shouldn't, 
and  there  began  a  sort  of  duel  of  reserve  which 
13 


194  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

presently  became  amusing  for  the  sake  of  seeing 
who  could  keep  it  up  longest.  The  stranger 
kept  it  up  so  successfully  that  I  began  to  have 
doubts  of  his  being  an  Englishman,  but  James, 
who  is  an  authority  on  such  matters,  declared 
that  nobody  but  an  Englishman  would  wear 
a  little  gold  cross  on  his  watch  -  chain  in  a 
Catholic  country.  At  last  some  roast  beef  was 
handed  round  the  table,  and  I  think  we  all  three 
felt  that  with  the  advent  of  our  national  dish 
the  critical  moment  had  come.  There  was  a 
little  pause,  and  then,  without  speaking  but  with 
a  slight  intensification  of  his  twinkle,  the  stranger 
—passed  the  mustard !  As  a  riposte  we  thanked 
him — in  Spanish — and  so  the  duel  ended  in  a 
"  draw."  Thus  we  parted  from  the  only  English- 
man we  met  in  Spain,  except  by  appointment, 
without  the  interchange  of  a  single  word  beyond 
"  Gracias."  It  was  all  very  absurd,  but  we  had 
to  respect  so  subtle  a  humorist. 

We  took  our  coffee  at  a  little  table  outside 
the  Cafe  Suizo,  which  overlooks  the  beautiful 
promenade  of  the  Espolon,  where  a  band  was 
playing.  It  was  a  fine,  warm  night,  and  all 
Burgos  was  taking  the  air,  drinking  coffee  or 
vermouth  at  the  tables,  or  wandering  up  and 
down  in  orderly  endless  chains — two  in  the 
roadway  and  one  on  each  pavement.  Every- 
body seemed  happy  and  contented  to  take  their 
pleasure  in  this  simple  way;  a  cup  of  coffee, 
some  good  music,  and  a  walk  under  the  trees. 


"A   WEE    BIT   HEATHER"         195 

There  were  a  great  many  soldiers,  cavalrymen 
in  handsome  uniforms  of  light  blue  and  silver, 
and  infantrymen  with  trousers  of  a  sumptuous 
red  between  crimson  and  scarlet,  and  most  of 
the  women  wore  white  dresses.  Groups  of  three 
or  four  people  would  fall  out  of  the  procession 
and  settle  at  the  tables,  or  join  in  again  without 
creating  any  confusion.  We  made  friends  with 
a  sharp  little  girl  who  was  crying  the  Diario  del 
Norte  in  piercing  tones.  We  didn't  want  a 
paper,  but  she  passionately  refused  to  accept  the 
coin  we  offered  except  in  exchange.  On  the 
first  page  there  was  a  programme  of  the  music 
the  band  was  playing  that  evening,  and  a  melody 
sounding  familiar,  I  looked  out  the  number  dis- 
played on  the  band-stand.  It  was  "  A  Wee  Bit 
Heather." 

Some  sort  of  fair  was  going  on  in  the  avenue 
which  runs  westward  along  the  river  from  the 
Puente  de  Santa  Maria.  The  long  line  of  lighted 
booths  contained  just  the  things  one  sees  dis- 
played on  similar  occasions  in  England;  the 
peculiarly  unwholesome-looking  sweets  and  cakes 
that  are  known  as  "fairings,"  cheap  cutlery  and 
jewellery,  toys,  hair-combs  and  "  slides  "  of  imita- 
tion tortoise-shell  and  amber,  and  flimsy  finery. 
The  notices,  too,  were  like  our  own:  "Every 
article  on  this  stall  at  three  reales"  " No  article 
will  be  changed,"  and  so  on.  The  most  popular 
toy  seemed  to  be  a  large  football  with  parti- 
coloured gores. 


196  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

We  spent  several  hours  strolling  about  the 
Espolon  or  along  the  avenue  which  trailed  out 
into  the  darkness.  The  temperature  was  of  a 
most  delicious  mildness;  it  was  almost  the  only 
night  I  remember  when  one  could  have  slept  out 
of  doors  without  the  slightest  feeling  of  braving 
the  elements,  which  is  perhaps  the  commonest 
reason  for  doing  so  in  our  own  country.  In  the 
darkness  we  missed  the  exact  position  of  our 
hotel,  and  we  asked  for  it  of  three  soldiers  re- 
turning to  barracks.  They  accompanied  us  to 
the  door,  standing  bare-headed  with  heels  to- 
gether to  bid  us  a  formal  "  Buenas  noches" 

Five  minutes'  conversation  with  an  intelligent 
waiter  who  didn't  speak  French  cleared  up  our 
misunderstanding  with  his  master,  and  we  found 
that  the  terms  of  our  accommodation  were  not 
unreasonable.  As  we  went  to  bed  a  late  new- 
comer was  taken  into  the  bedroom  next  to  ours, 
and  we  heard  him  in  anxious  conversation  with 
the  waiter  and  trying  the  communicating  doors 
and  the  window,  which,  like  our  own,  opened  on 
the  leads  of  a  lower  storey.  It  was  rather 
amusing  to  hear  the  waiter  assuring  the  timid 
gentleman  that  he  had  nothing  to  fear  from  his 
neighbours. 


PUERTA  DEL  SARMENTAL ;  BURGOS   CATHEDRAL 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE    CLIMATE    OF    BURGOS — THE    CANONS*     MASS SAN 

JOSti SAN    ESTl^BAN THE     CASTILLO THE    SPANISH   "  V  " 

AND    "B" THE    CONVENT    OF    LAS   HUELGAS A  SIESTA 

BEGGARS DUST THE    WHITE    WORLD    OF    LA    CARTUJA    DE 

MIRAFLORES "  FROM     MAPLE'S  " A     COLD    EVENING     AT 

BURGOS 

T\7E  were  awakened  by  the  bells  of  the 
cathedral  and  took  our  morning  coffee 
among  faded  yellow  roses  in  the  sunny  glazed 
balcony  of  the  hotel.  It  was  like  sitting  in  a 
bird-cage.  Assuming  that  July  is  one  of  the 
three  months  of  iiifierno,  the  climate  of  Burgos  is 
complicated  in  a  manner  that  is  truly  Dantesque 
by  a  mixture  of  hell  and  winter  on  the  same  day. 
Directly  we  emerged  from  the  hotel  we  were 
cut  to  the  bone  by  a  bitter  wind  that  swept  the 
Espolon,  raising  clouds  of  dust,  as  if  in  mockery 
of  the  brilliant  sunshine.  All  the  people  we  met 
were  muffled  up  to  the  eyes,  and  looked  miserable 
and  short-tempered. 

We  entered  the  cathedral  by  the  Puerta  de 
Sarmental  in  the  south  transept  which,  with  its 
beautiful  rose-window  and  open  arcade  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  is  perhaps  the  most  entirely 
satisfactory  portion  of  the  whole  building.  Canons' 


197 


198  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

Mass  was  being  celebrated  at  the  high  altar  of 
the  capilla  mayor,  and  we  took  our  places  between 
the  great  bronze  screens  which  connect  the  chancel 
with  the  choir.  Only  about  twenty  people,  all 
of  the  poorer  classes,  were  present.  The  position 
of  this  humble  congregation  between  the  altar  and 
the  main  body  of  clergy  and  the  choir,  and  the 
grandeur  of  the  ceremonial,  and  this  merely  on 
a  weekday,  gave  a  profound  impression  of  the 
splendid  indifference  of  the  Roman  Church  to 
the  support  of  the  laity.  It  was  as  if  the  whole 
resources  of  religion  were  being  squandered  with 
the  careless  generosity  of  nature.  Instead  of  the 
congregation  being  the  main  body  of  which  the 
richly- vested  priests  at  the  altar  were  merely  the 
official  representatives,  it  was  absorbed,  lost  and 
forgotten  among  them.  People  might  come  to 
mass  or  they  might  stop  away ;  but  whether  they 
came  in  a  thousand  or  a  dozen,  or  came  not  at 
all,  the  full  and  unmodified  ritual  of  the  occasion 
would  be  performed.  The  people  knelt  on  the 
marble  floor  under  the  great  lantern,  keeping 
close  to  the  bronze  screen,  so  as  to  leave  the 
central  space  unimpeded,  and  at  a  certain  point 
in  the  service  the  deacon  and  sub-deacon,  accom- 
panied by  the  master  of  the  ceremonies  in  a 
gorgeous  purple  gown,  conducted  the  bishop  to 
the  altar  from  his  throne  at  the  end  of  the 
choir.  The  celebration,  as  if  it  were  the  central 
function  of  the  cathedral,  seemed  to  give  it  an 
organic  unity  which  it  had  hitherto  lacked,  and 


THE   CANONS'   MASS  199 

when  above  the  sombre  chanting  of  the  priests 
a  boy's  voice  rang  out  exultingly  in  a  florid  solo, 
one  seemed  for  a  moment  to  catch  a  glimpse  of 
some  co-ordinating  principle  in  this  confusion 
and  conflict  of  styles  and  periods  ;  to  see  that  the 
restless  imagery  of  the  lantern  was  not  really 
incompatible  with  the  sober  lines  of  the  original 
building.  And  when  we  passed  out  of  the  choir 
to  walk  round  the  ambulatory,  and  to  glance  again 
into  the  chapels,  the  ring  of  lesser  churches  which 
surrounds  the  central  shrine,  they  had  fallen 
into  a  new  relation  ;  they  formed  a  background 
which  was  rich  but  no  longer  disturbing.  It  was 
as  if  only  in  the  function  of  the  building  one  had 
guessed  the  key  to  its  structure. 

There  is  something  quite  in  keeping  with  its 
character  in  the  way  Burgos  Cathedral  defeats 
any  attempt  to  photograph  it  as  a  whole.  It 
never,  so  to  speak,  gives  itself  away,  so  that  the 
result  can  be  studied  coldly  at  leisure.  As  we 
stood  upon  a  rubbish-heap  to  enable  me  to  take 
a  partial  view  from  the  north-east,  a  little  boy 
came,  and,  as  one  grasping  the  situation,  pointed 
excitedly  up  to  a  small  window  in  a  tumble- 
down-looking house  on  the  hillside  above.  We 
understood  him  to  say  that  it  was  possible  to 
take  a  photograph  of  the  whole  of  the  cathedral 
from  the  window.  He  took  us  to  the  house,  of 
which  the  interior  bore  some  traces  of  former 
architectural  beauty,  and  led  us  up  a  staircase,  but 
as  the  window  looked  into  the  eye  of  the  sun  it 


200  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

was  useless  for  my  purpose.  The  boy  tried  a 
door  which  opened  off  the  landing,  but  it  was 
locked,  and  just  then  a  woman  came  up,  scolded 
him,  and  intimated  that  there  were  interesting 
things  to  see  in  the  neighbourhood. 

The  building  we  were  in,  apparently  once  a 
place  of  importance,  had  been  cut  up  by  floors 
and  staircases  without  regard  to  its  original 
structure,  as  if  a  number  of  poor  families  had 
been  allowed  to  make  what  they  could  of  a  palace. 
Hidden  away  in  the  heart  of  it,  the  woman  showed 
us  a  small  bare  chapel  in  charge  of  a  pale  boy 
sacristan,  who  told  us  that  it  was  the  Chapel  of  San 
Jose.  He  was  evidently  proud  of  his  charge, 
which,  with  its  one  altar,  groined  roof,  and  boarded 
floor,  was  not  without  a  certain  charm  of  sim- 
plicity, and  there  was  something  rather  pathetic 
in  the  idea  of  him  growing  up  forgotten  in  the 
shadow  of  the  great  cathedral.  I  can  find  no 
mention  of  San  Jose  in  the  guide-books,  and 
apparently  few  come  there  to  worship. 

We  entered  the  Church  of  San  Esteban,  with 
its  fine  rose-window  crushed  out  of  the  circular 
by  the  settlement  of  the  wall  above,  over  the 
western  door.  The  church  contains  some  in- 
teresting tombs,  an  elaborately  carved  pulpit,  a 
late  but  not  unbeautiful  gallery,  and  a  curious  old 
painting  of  the  Last  Supper  over  the  sacristy 
door.  From  the  window  of  the  sacristy  there  is 
a  distant  view  of  the  Monastery  of  La  Cartuja 
de  Miraflores,  on  a  hill  to  the  south-east  of  the  city. 


THE  CASTILLO  ,20l) 

The  woman  led  us  into  some  ruined  cloisters 
of  admirable  fourteenth-century  work,  choked 
with  rubbish,  and  passing  through  a  door  we 
found  ourselves  on  the  bare  hillside  below  the 
Castillo.  When  we  had  paid  the  woman,  we 
gave  some  coppers  to  the  little  boy  who  had 
shown  us  the  window  overlooking  the  cathedral, 
and  he  was  immediately  surrounded  by  some 
smaller  companions,  wrangling  over  the  division 
of  the  spoil  with  loud  cries  of  "  Para  mi!  "  ("  For 
me  ! "),  "  Para  todos  !  "  ("  For  all !  "). 

The  reddish,  dusty  mound  of  the  Castillo  is 
covered  with  crumbling  fortifications  of  Moorish 
work — the  first  we  had  seen  in  Spain.  As  we 
climbed  to  the  summit,  past  a  few  men  twisting 
ropes,  it  was  hard  to  believe  that  this  was  once 
the  seat  of  the  Castilian  kings,  and  that  even 
so  late  as  1812  the  French  were  able  to  hold  it 
for  a  month,  with  final  success,  against  the  re- 
peated attacks  of  Wellington,  so  that  with  the 
approach  of  reinforcements  for  the  defenders,  he 
was  compelled  to  retreat  upon  Madrid.  Here 
also  the  Cid  was  married  to  Ximena  in  1074, 
and  Edivard  I.  of  England  to  Eleanor  of  Castile 
in  1254.  From  the  ruined  walls  of  the  Castillo, 
where  a  thin  grass  quivered  in  the  cold  wind, 
we  had  a  wide  view  of  the  surrounding  country. 
Immediately  below  us  lay  the  city  stretched  out 
along  the  Arlanzon,  as  if  exhausted  by  her  pas- 
sionate history.  East  and  west  long  avenues  of 
poplars,  broadening  to  a  park  about  Las  Huelgas, 


202  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

carried  a  refreshing  note  of  green  into  the  tawny, 
monotonous  plain,  surrounded  by  distant  moun- 
tains. 

Remembering  the  advice  of  our  philological 
friend  at  Durango,  we  crossed  the  river  to  visit 
Las  Huelgas,  which  lies  about  a  mile  and  a  quarter 
to  the  south-west  of  the  city.  We  followed  a 
fragrant  avenue  of  tall  planes  and  poplars  beside 
the  river.  Sheep- washing  was  going  on  at  the 
weir,  and  in  the  dry  space  of  the  river-bed  we 
saw  the  characteristic  figure  of  a  shepherd,  with 
a  slouch  hat  and  a  coloured  blanket  about  his 
shoulders,  leaning  on  a  tall  staff  in  the  midst  of 
his  flock.  The  river-bed,  indeed,  was  full  of  in- 
cidents which  marked  the  importance  of  water  in 
this  wind-parched  and  sun-baked  land.  A  little 
below  the  weir  oxen  were  being  watered,  picking 
their  way  among  the  pools  with  extraordinary  de- 
liberation ;  and  in  several  places  groups  of  women 
were  washing  clothes  and  singing  monotonously 
over  their  work.  Everywhere  we  were  reminded 
of  the  Spain  we  had  read  about  and  seen  in  pic- 
tures. As  we  turned  to  recross  the  river  by  the 
Puente  de  Malatos  to  refresh  ourselves  at  a  little 
wine-shop,  we  were  commended  to  God  by  a  grave 
man,  with  an  immensely  broad  hat,  with  the 
straight  brim  turned  up  at  the  edges  like  a  tray, 
riding  upon  a  gaily  caparisoned  mule. 

The  dark  interior  of  the  wine-shop  was  crowded 
with  wild-looking  men  seated  at  a  rude  table  over 
a  steaming  pot  of  beans  and  bacon.  Their  excited 


THE   SPANISH   "V"   AND   «B"     203 

conversation  died  away  on  our  entrance,  and  we 
heard  the  word  "Franceses"  muttered  by  one 
and  another.  We  turned  round  and  said,  "No, 
Ingleses"  and  immediately  the  gloom  flashed  with 
teeth,  friendly  hands  were  waved,  and  the  clatter 
of  knives  began  again.  The  girl  at  the  counter 
seemed  hardly  to  understand  my  request  for  wine. 
She  stared  at  me  in  a  puzzled  manner  and  then 
said,  "  Oh,  bino  !  "  This  interchange  of  the  Spanish 
v  and  b,  often  compromised  by  something  be- 
tween the  two,  impossible  to  reproduce  phone- 
tically, is  curiously  suggestive  of  Southern  languor, 
as  if  the  lips,  heavy  with  heat,  were  unable  to  dis- 
criminate between  the  two  sounds.  The  faltering 
articulation  of  the  middle  sound  seems  to  have  left 
visible  traces  of  a  wistful  charm  on  the  sensuous 
lips  of  the  Spanish  woman.  This  correspondence 
between  sound  and  shape  is,  I  think,  not  merely 
fanciful :  you  can  see  "  laidy  "  on  the  lips  of  the 
London  shopgirl,  and  in  Lancashire  there  is  a 
characteristic  type  of  mouth  associated  with  the 
production  of  the  nearly  French  eu  sound,  as  in 
"feut-ba'"  for  "foot-ball." 

We  drank  two  glasses  of  an  excellent  white 
wine  resembling  Sauterne,  and  recrossed  the  bridge 
to  the  Convent  of  Las  Huelgas,  with  its  little  old- 
world  village  in  odd  proximity  to  a  new  military 
hospital.  Male  visitors  are  allowed  only  in  some 
parts  of  the  chapel,  and  the  sacristan  who  met  us 
at  the  gates  had  a  certain  confidential  gravity  as  if 
he  were  conscious  of  privileges  denied  to  the  rest 


204  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

of  his  sex.  He  tip-toed  into  the  chapel  and  re- 
turned with  a  finger  on  his  lip,  explaining  that  a 
Chapter  was  in  progress  and  that  we  must  wait 
for  a  few  minutes  in  the  porch  of  the  cloisters. 
Here  there  are  some  very  beautiful  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  century  tombs,  one  with  a  sculptured 
canopy,  a  fine  rose-window,  and  other  architectural 
details  in  a  pure  early  Gothic.  The  whole  build- 
ing, indeed,  is  of  a  comparatively  severe  Northern 
character,  in  striking  contrast  to  the  rococo  rich- 
ness of  Burgos  Cathedral.  The  place  has  English 
associations  in  keeping  with  its  appearance,  for 
Edward  I.  was  knighted  here  in  1254,  and  Eleanor, 
daughter  of  Henry  II.,  who  as  the  wife  of  Alfonso 
VIII.  was  responsible  for  the  foundation  of  the 
convent,  lies  buried  in  the  chapel. 

The  convent  originally  possessed  an  almost 
royal  revenue  and  extraordinary  privileges.  The 
abbess,  "  por  la  gratia  de  Dios"  came  next  to  the 
Queen  of  Spain  in  dignity,  with  powers  of  life  and 
death,  and  the  nuns  were  of  the  nobility  with  the 
title  of  "  Senoras  "  or  "  ladies,"  instead  of  "  sores  " 
or  sisters.  Their  present  number  is  twenty-eight 
and,  if  I  understood  the  sacristan  rightly,  they 
are  divided  into  two  orders ;  those  of  noble  birth 
belonging  to  St.  Bernard  and  the  others  to  St. 
Benedict. 

There  is  not  much  to  see  in  that  part  of  the 
chapel  of  Las  Huelgas  which  we  were  allowed  to 
visit  except  some  fine  sixteenth-century  tapestry 
and,  hanging  from  the  chancel  roof,  a  copy  of  the 


LAS   HUELGAS  205 

banner  taken  from  the  Moors  at  the  battle  of  Las 
Navas  de  Tolosa  in  1212.  The  original  is  kept  in 
the  nuns'  choir.  This  relic  of  old  strife  well  be- 
comes a  place  which,  in  spite  of  the  loss  of  revenue 
and  privilege,  still  retains  the  atmosphere  of  the 
church  militant,  and  something  of  the  fine  arro- 
gance of  a  powerful  religious  order.  There  is 
about  Las  Huelgas,  too,  a  feeling  of  the  uncom- 
promising severity  of  women's  rule,  and  though 
the  abbess  no  longer  holds  the  powers  of  "  horca  y 
cuchillo"  of  the  gallows  and  the  knife,  one  would 
not  be  surprised  to  find  inscribed  upon  the  portal 
the  line  out  of  Tennyson's  "Princess,"  "Let  no 
man  enter  in  on  pain  of  death."  The  sacristan 
was  very  anxious  that  we  should  see  the  senoras, 
and  we  waited  by  the  iron  grating  which  divides 
the  transepts  from  the  nave  until  the  hour  of  their 
office.  They  came  in  swiftly  and  silently,  with  an 
effect  of  dignity  and  aloofness  which  gave  one  the 
uncomfortable  sensation  of  a  Peeping  Tom,  and 
took  their  places  in  the  richly-carved  stalls  of  the 
choir,  which  is  hung  with  gorgeous  tapestries  of 
red  violet.  One  of  the  senoras  began  the  office  in 
a  voice  so  strangely  emptied,  not  only  of  sex  but 
even  of  humanity,  that  we  were  glad  to  retreat 
from  the  chapel  and  find  ourselves  again  in  the 
homely  atmosphere  of  the  little  village  at  its  doors. 
We  crossed  the  Puente  de  Malatos  once  more 
and  returned  to  Burgos  by  the  pleasant  Paseo  de 
la  Isla,  which  is  laid  out  in  a  little  park  with  stocks 
and  roses  in  bloom.  The  shepherd  still  stood 


206  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

motionless,  leaning  on  his  tall  staff  in  the  midst  of 
his  flock  in  the  river  bed.  Apparently  neither  he 
nor  they  had  moved  a  limb  since  we  passed  there 
an  hour  ago  on  the  other  side  of  the  river. 

We  bought  bread  and  fruit  at  a  shop  with  live 
partridges  in  wicker  cages  hanging  at  the  door,  and 
went  to  a  low-browed  cantina  to  eat  our  lunch. 
The  interior  reminded  me  of  a  picture  by  Mr. 
Brangwyn.  In  one  corner  a  gipsy-looking  man 
lounged  on  a  bench  and  drank  wine  from  a  curious 
long-spouted  vessel  which  he  held  away  from  his 
tilted  head,  directing  the  needle-fine  stream  of 
liquor  into  his  mouth  with  consummate  skill. 
With  difficulty  I  prevented  James  from  disgrac- 
ing himself  by  attempting  the  trick  in  public. 
Afterwards  we  dozed  on  the  benches  in  the 
Espolon,  where  we  had  to  choose  between  being 
frozen  in  the  shade  or  roasted  by  the  sun.  Except 
for  two  or  three  men  who,  like  ourselves,  were 
taking  their  siesta  in  the  open  air,  there  was  not  a 
person  visible.  The  whole  city  seemed  silent  and 
deserted,  and  when,  after  an  hour,  we  rose  to  walk 
to  La  Cartuja,  the  figures  of  eighteen  or  twenty 
men  lying  full  length  on  the  hot  pavement  behind 
the  cavalry  barracks  quite  startled  us ;  they  looked 
so  like  the  bodies  of  the  dead. 

We  crossed  the  river  by  the  bridge  of  San 
Pablo,  which  connects  a  little  island  with  either 
bank,  to  the  magnificent  Paseo  de  la  Quinta, 
planted  with  poplars,  elms,  and  acacias.  From 
here  one  has  a  good  general  view  of  the  red  and 


BURGOS   AND   ITS   CATHEDRAL    207 

white  city  stretched  out  beside  the  river,  domi- 
nated by  the  cathedral  with  its  background  of 
bare,  pale,  sandy  hill,  topped  by  the  crumbling 
walls  of  the  Castillo.  Unlike  most  English  towns, 
Burgos  degenerates  from  the  centre  outwards, 
and  thus  gives  the  impression  that  it  is  merely  a 
setting  for  the  cathedral ;  that  the  cathedral  came 
first  before  there  were  any  houses,  as  if  people 
came  out  of  the  barren  plain  to  wonder  and  wor- 
ship long  before  they  found  courage  to  build  their 
dwellings  around  it.  There  are  no  suburbs  to 
Burgos ;  it  leaves  off  in  the  dust,  giving  a  strange 
effect  of  isolation.  It  is  built  in  an  oasis  of  the 
desert,  though  one  feels  that  the  city  was  there 
before  the  trees.  But  for  the  city  there  would  be 
no  trees ;  the  avenues  extend  east  and  west  along 
the  river  banks,  carrying  a  thread  of  green  into  the 
country,  as  if  they  were  reluctant  to  leave  off. 

About  a  mile  from  the  city  we  left  the  grateful 
shade  and  the  grass  of  the  Quinta  for  a  burning 
road  that  crossed  the  railway.  From  a  woman  on 
her  knees  beating  clothes  beside  a  runnel  we  asked 
the  way  to  La  Cartuja  ;  she  told  us,  laughing 
hysterically  at  our  use  of  her  language.  Many 
wild  flowers  grew  from  the  hot  soil  beside  the 
footpath  we  followed  between  a  cornfield  and  the 
broad-gauge  railway  line ;  there  were  scabious, 
cornflowers,  rest-harrow,  poppies,  vetch,  dog  roses, 
and  a  species  of  hemlock.  At  a  level  crossing 
there  was  a  little  square  house  bearing  a  plate  with 
the  number  367 — the  distance  in  kilometres  from 


208  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

Madrid.  A  woman  dozed  on  a  kitchen  chair  in 
the  doorway,  with  rolled  flags  in  her  lap,  and  two 
children  lay  asleep  on  the  ground  in  dangerous 
proximity  to  the  line.  Here  a  priest  told  us  to 
take  the  broad  road  to  the  right,  and  in  a  few 
minutes  we  came  to  an  archway  bearing  the  initials 
of  "  Jesus  Christus  Redemptor  Hex  Regum"  This 
was  originally  the  entrance  to  Enrique  III.'s  deer- 
park  of  Miraflores,  which  his  son,  Juan  II.,  gave 
to  the  Carthusian  Order  in  1442.  Through  the 
archway  the  road  ascends  to  a  group  of  buildings 
at  the  lower  angle  of  the  monastery  grounds,  once 
the  farm,  but  now  apparently  disused.  We  took 
the  road  to  the  left,  skirting  the  high  boundary - 
wall  and  rising  steeply.  The  hillside  here  is  clothed 
with  dwarf  oak  and  elm  trees,  and  there  is  a  scanty 
vegetation.  In  a  little  dingle  we  saw  a  shepherd 
asleep  wrapped  in  his  blanket,  with  his  flock  around 
him.  The  circular  shadow  of  an  elm  exactly 
covered  man  and  sheep.  The  road  was  ankle-deep 
in  dust,  the  heat  of  the  sun  overpowering,  and 
twice  during  the  short  ascent  we  sat  down,  crush- 
ing ourselves  against  the  wall  to  gain  a  hand's- 
breadth  of  shade.  Each  time  we  were  accosted  by 
a  beggar,  who  appeared  from  nowhere,  with  the 
formula,  "  Una  limosnita  por  la  gratia  de  Dios." 

The  Monastery  of  La  Cartuja  de  Miraflores, 
founded  by  King  Juan  II.,  destroyed  by  fire  and 
rebuilt,  all  in  the  fifteenth  century,  stands  on  a 
hill  about  two  miles  to  the  south-east  of  Burgos. 
It  was  the  work  of  John  of  Cologne  and  his  son 


BEGGARS— DUST  209 

Simon,  who  also  built  the  main  towers  of  Burgos 
Cathedral.  A  wayside  cross  heralds  the  first 
vision  of  the  monastery,  which  at  the  present 
day  is  inhabited  by  twenty  monks. 

At  three  o'clock  on  this  blazing  afternoon  we 
found  half-a-dozen  beggars  outside  the  portal, 
wrapped  in  their  blankets,  dozing  in  the  sun.  On 
the  strength  of  our  dusty  and  generally  down-at- 
heel  appearance  they  accepted  us  as  brothers,  and 
told  us  that  there  was  no  chance  of  hospitality  till 
four  o'clock.  Speaking  of  dust,  by  the  way,  I'm 
inclined  to  doubt  if  a  dark  blue  serge  suit — though 
it  has  the  advantages  of  being  hard-wearing  and 
inconspicuous  and  passable  in  most  of  the  social 
emergencies  which  are  likely  to  befall  the  stranger 
—is  quite  the  best  clothing  for  rough  travelling 
in  the  interior  of  Spain,  at  any  rate  in  summer. 
While  we  were  in  the  Castiles  we  felt  like  millers ; 
the  dust  was  so  fine  that  it  sank  into  the  material, 
and  the  application  of  a  clothes-brush  only  served 
to  bring  it  to  the  surface  in  white  lines.  If  it  had 
rained  we  should  have  been  encased  in  a  sort  of 
dough. 

The  elm-shaded  plateau  in  front  of  the  portal 
is  flanked  on  the  right  by  tall  iron  gates  giving 
on  what  is,  I  suppose,  the  present  farm  of  the 
monastery.  The  gates  were  open,  but  an  immense 
wolf-hound  guarded  the  entrance.  To  pass  the 
interval  until  four  o'clock  we  followed  the  ex- 
ample of  the  beggars,  though  at  a  little  distance, 
and  lay  down  on  the  scrubby  yellow  grass  by  the 


210 


A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 


cypress-topped  cemetery  wall,  where  we  were 
roasted  by  the  sun  on  one  side,  and  on  the  other 
chilled  by  the  bitter  wind  which  seems  to  be  eter- 
nally blowing  over  the  level  cornlands  of  Old 
Castile.  Before  us  lay  an  immense  plain,  extending 
apparently  as  far  as  Pancorbo,  enclosed  by  flat- 
topped  khaki-coloured  hills,  and  intersected  by  the 
railway  and  a  line  of  poplars,  vividly  green  against 
their  drab  surroundings.  We  were  as  if  hung  up 
in  space  over  the  very  plains  of  silence.  Nothing  of 
the  monastery  was  visible  to  the  outer  world  but 
the  long  church  of  pale  stone  with  pinnacled  but- 
tresses, whereon  snapdragons  were  growing  as  if  in 
passionate  protest  against  their  austere  birthplace. 

On  the  stroke  of  four  the  beggars  turned  over 
and  yawned,  and  one  of  them  lazily  beckoned  us  to 
the  portal,  whence  came  a  stirring  of  bolts.  He 
prepared  to  take  his  chance  with  us  in  a  sports- 
manlike manner,  clutched  with  surprised  gratitude 
the  coppeis  we  gave  him,  and  before  his  com- 
panions could  rouse  themselves  to  frame  an  appeal, 
pushed  open  the  door. 

For  a  moment  our  eyes,  accustomed  to  the 
drab  and  dusty  world  outside,  were  dazzled  by  the 
white  loveliness  of  the  scene.  The  little  square 
garden  of  the  cloistered  court  was  filled  with 
white  roses,  Madonna  lilies,  reflecting  the  light  like 
molten  silver,  and  tall  white  hollyhocks,  gently 
moving.  In  the  midst  a  little  white  statue  of  St. 
Bruno,  in  the  habit  of  the  order,  with  folded  arms, 
looked  down  at  the  flowers.  Miraflores — I  wonder 


MIRAFLORES 


211 


if  it  is  by  chance,  or  in  a  pretty  gratitude,  that  this 
figure  of  the  founder  of  the  Carthusians  is  made 
thus  to  perpetuate  the  original  name  of  the  royal 
park  bestowed  upon  the  order  ?  Miraflores — "  To 
look  at  the  flowers." 

A  door  on  the  right  opened  quickly,  and  a  lean, 
white-robed,  white-bearded  monk  half  emerged, 
and  with  a  passionate  gesture,  which  we  at  first 
mistook  to  mean  that  we  must  not  further  disturb 
the  lilied  peace  of  St.  Bruno,  showed  us  a  door  on 
the  other  side  of  the  court.  He  disappeared,  and 
in  a  few  moments  admitted  us  to  the  western  divi- 
sion of  the  church,  which  is  open  to  worshippers 
from  the  outer  world.  His  deeply  sunken  dark 
eyes — they  seemed  indeed  the  darkest  thing  in  all 
this  whiteness — burned  with  extraordinary  intensity 
in  his  parchment  face,  and  his  movements  were 
quick  and  abrupt.  Only  the  touching  patience 
with  which  he  helped  out  our  unfamiliarity  with 
his  language  convinced  us  that  he  was  not  very 
angry.  Little  by  little  one  recognised  that  the 
wildness  of  his  manner  came  from  zeal ;  it  was  the 
positive  aspect  of  asceticism,  as  if  the  energy  which 
most  men  fritter  away  in  speech,  and  the  idle 
business  and  pleasures  of  life,  were  in  him  concen- 
trated in  a  white  heat  of  devotion.  Looking  at 
him,  one's  idea  of  the  cloister  as  a  place  where  life 
| lagged,  where  duties  were  invented  to  kill  mono- 
>ny,  were  readjusted.  I  understood  the  meaning 
)f  the  phrase  that  such  a  one  had  "  embraced  " 
;he  religious  life. 


212  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

The  church  of  La  Cartuja  is  without  aisles,  and, 
as  is  usual  in  Carthusian  convents,  divided  into 
three  portions ;  the  westernmost  for  the  people, 
the  middle  for  the  lay  monks,  and  that  nearest  the 
high  altar  for  the  priesthood.  Bidding  us  follow 
him  through  the  wooden  screen  bearing  the  words 
"  Felix  Cceti  Port  a"  and  flanked  on  one  side  by  a 
Flemish  and  on  the  other  by  a  Spanish  altar-piece, 
the  brother  showed  us  the  treasures  of  the  small 
white  building;  the  marvellous  retablo  of  carved 
and  gilded  wood — gilded,  he  said,  with  the  gold 
which  Christopher  Columbus  brought  from 
America — by  Gil  de  Siloe,  a  triptych  of  the 
Crucifixion  by  one  of  the  Flemish  masters,  from 
whom  the  Spanish  painters  learned  so  strangely 
little,  and  the  elaborate  and  minutely  realistic 
marble  and  alabaster  monuments  of  Juan  II.  and 
his  queen  and  of  the  Infante  Alonso.  These 
monuments,  which  are  by  Gil  de  Siloe,  are  said  to 
be  the  best  of  their  kind  in  Europe,  but  for  all 
their  exquisite  foliation — as  fine  as  frostwork — and 
cunning  imitation  of  textures,  one  finds  oneself 
admiring  their  ingenuity  rather  than  loving  their 
beauty.  In  the  chapel  of  St.  Bruno  we  saw  the 
painted  wooden  statue  of  the  saint  of  which 
Philip  IV.  said,  "  He  does  not  speak,  but  only 
because  he  is  a  Carthusian  monk." 

Having  shown  us  round  the  church,  the  brother 
flung — the  word  cannot  be  avoided — himself  on 
his  knees  in  one  of  the  stalls,  muttering  feverishly, 
as  if  not  a  moment  must  be  unoccupied.  Presently 


MIRAFLORES  213 

half-a-dozen  other  visitors  entered  the  church ;  two 
commercial-looking  men,  who  loudly  estimated  the 
value  of  every  object  they  handled,  accompanied 
by  an  over-dressed  woman  and  a  little  boy  carrying 
a  hoop,  a  soldier  and  a  peasant  girl  with  a  pocket- 
handkerchief  covering  her  head.  The  behaviour 
of  the  last  two  was  in  pleasant  contrast  to  that  of 
the  others.  The  brother  asked  us  to  wait  in  the 
ante-chapel  while  he  took  them  round,  and  as  I 
was  extremely  anxious  to  get  a  photograph  of  the 
little  garden,  we  took  advantage  of  the  porch  to 
change  my  films.  A  curious  incident,  and  one 
that  made  me  feel  slightly  uncomfortable,  hap- 
pened while  I  was  taking  the  picture.  I  had 
released  the  shutter,  and  on  looking  up  from  the 
finder  I  met  another  pair  of  eyes,  startled,  and  a 
little  reproachful,  gazing  into  mine.  A  brother, 
carrying  a  watering-pot,  had  noiselessly  entered 
the  garden  while  I  was  busy — if  indeed  he  was  not 
there  all  the  time,  for  his  white  habit  against  the 
pale  wall  and  among  the  flowers  made  him  practi- 
cally invisible  but  for  his  eyes.  If  he  had  stood  a 
second  earlier  where  I  became  aware  of  him  he 
would  have  been  included  in  the  picture.  I  can 
only  hope  that  he  did  not  think  I  was  snap- 
shotting him. 

When  the  brother  had  finished  showing  the 
church  to  the  other  visitors,  he  called  the  men  of 
the  party  together,  and  we  entered  the  monastery. 
What  impressed  us  most  was  the  childlike  en- 
thusiasm of  our  guide,  as  if  he  could  not  suffi- 


214  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

ciently  express  his  joy  at  being  permitted  to  serve 
God  in  so  beautiful  a  place.  But  there  was  not 
the  least  trace  of  anything  morbid  or  sentimental 
in  his  manner,  which,  on  the  contrary,  was  in- 
tensely practical,  with  a  brisk,  unsmiling  cheerful- 
ness as  if  there  were  many  and  important  things 
to  do,  while  all  the  world  outside  the  monastery 
walls  was  wasting  its  time.  To  James  and  myself, 
as  to  strangers  in  the  land,  he  was  particularly 
attentive,  repeating  his  remarks  very  slowly,  with 
vivid  gestures  and  grasping  our  arms  to  enforce  his 
meaning.  "  There  is  a  Carthusian  monastery  in 
London,"  he  told  us,  as  if  to  make  us  feel  at 
home. 

With  pathetic  want  of  taste  the  white  vault  of 
the  cloister  had  been  painted  with  black  stripes  to 
imitate  groining.  Fixed  to  the  wall  at  one  point 
was  a  long  tablet  with  names  written  in  black  and 
red,  and  little  movable  pegs,  like  the  scoring- 
board  of  some  intricate  game,  to  show  where  and 
when  each  brother  was  occupied,  and  so  save  the 
necessity  for  speech.  Below  the  tablet  a  slip  of 
paper  told  us  that  a  few  days  earlier  one  of  the 
white  company  had  finished  his  earthly  novitiate. 
Through  the  barred  windows  in  the  outer  wall  of 
the  cloisters  we  had  glimpses  of  a  vegetable  garden 
and  orchard,  the  trim  and  flourishing  condition  of 
which  was  in  keeping  with  the  energetic  manner  of 
our  guide.  He  took  us  into  the  refectory,  where 
the  clean  cloth  of  the  long  table  was  protected  at 
the  edge  by  a  board  and  furnished  at  intervals  with 


"FROM   MAPLE'S" 


215 


small  bottles  of  wine  and  some  thick  white  crockery. 
Finally,  with  the  infusion  of  a  slightly  more  personal 
civility  into  his  manner,  very  charming  to  see,  he 
invited  us  into  his  own  cell.  It  was  very  cold  and 
bare,  with  an  uncovered  mattress  under  an  alcove, 
a  deal  table,  and  some  plain  shelves  fixed  to  the 
wall,  and  it  had  not  even  the  comfort  of  privacy, 
for  there  was  a  peep-hole  in  the  door ;  but  the 
brother  did  the  honours  with  a  simple  dignity 
which  would  have  become  the  owner  of  a  palace. 
As  if  he  would  insist  upon  every  detail  of  his 
privileges  he  drew  me  to  the  small  window  and 
showed  me  a  foot  of  blue  sky,  a  tree-top,  and  a 
corner  of  the  crocketed  roof  of  the  church.  I 
fancied  that  his  eyes  were  momentarily  wistful  as 
we  turned  from  the  window. 

It  was  at  this  moment  that  one  of  the  com- 
mercial-looking gentlemen  justified  our  instinctive 
dislike  of  him,  and  proved  that  the  bounder  may 
exist  even  in  Spain.  Touching  my  arm,  he  pointed 
contemptuously  to  the  poor  table  and  the  shelves, 
and  said — I'll  swear  they  were  the  only  English 
words  he  knew — "  From  Maple's." 

The  difference  between  the  atmosphere  of  La 
Cartuja  and  that  of  Las  Huelgas  struck  me  as  too 
remarkable  to  be  put  down  to  personal  feeling. 
Equally  removed  from  the  world  in  character,  and 
more  by  position,  La  Cartuja  is  not,  like  Las 
Huelgas,  removed  from  humanity.  It  seems  to 
have  attained  its  aloofness  from  the  world  by  a 
fusion  of  the  discordant  elements  of  human  nature, 


216 


A   SPANISH  HOLIDAY 


as  if  by  an  increase  of  spiritual  temperature.  Even 
its  appeal  to  the  bodily  senses  is  positive  rather  than 
negative.  It  is  white  and  silent,  but  not  merely  from 
the  absence  of  colour  and  sound.  The  silence  and 
the  whiteness  of  the  place  are  both  positive,  as  if  it 
were  silent  by  the  harmony  of  all  sounds  and  white 
by  the  balance  of  all  colours.  And  the  difference, 
so  far  as  it  can  be  judged  by  a  passing  observer, 
between  the  " Senoras"  of  Las  Huelgas  and  the 
monks  of  La  Cartuja,  as  people  apart  from  the 
world,  is  the  difference  between  a  function  sup- 
pressed and  a  function  more  happily  fulfilled  than 
is  possible  to  people  exposed  to  the  disturbing 
accidents  of  social  intercourse.  I  should  hesitate 
to  generalise  from  this,  to  say,  for  example,  that 
apparently  only  men  and  not  women  can  live  the 
dedicated  life  in  concert  without  violence  to  their 
natures,  and  indeed  the  difference  in  result  may  be 
due  to  a  sum  of  small  practical  differences  in  the 
routine  and  occupations  of  the  two  orders,  but  it 
is  certainly  the  case  that  while  the  final  note  of 
Las  Huelgas  is  that  of  the  uneasy  arrogance  which 
so  often  follows  and  supports  renunciation,  the  last 
impression  of  La  Cartuja  is  that  of  the  serene 
humility  which  is  fulfilment. 

Until  now  I  had  thought  of  a  monk  as  a  man 
who  had  simplified  life  only  by  giving  up  its 
problems :  when  I  shook  hands  with  the  brother  of 
La  Cartuja  in  the  little  fragrant  garden  of  white 
flowers,  watched  by  St.  Bruno,  which  seemed  to 
sum  up  the  spirit  of  the  place  as  the  banner  of  Las 


THE  QUINTA;  BURGOS 


A   COLD   EVENING 


217 


Navas  sums  up  the  spirit  of  Las  Huelgas,  I  felt 
that  I  was  parting  from  a  man  who  had  solved 
them.  And  because  he  had  solved  them  I  felt 
that,  in  spite  of  the  barrier  of  language,  we  had 
met  and  talked  intimately ;  that  I  had  suffered  one 
of  those  rare  experiences  in  which  for  a  moment 
the  impertinent  but  insuperable  obstacles  to  human 
intercourse  had  ceased  to  exist.  I  think  I  could 
have  more  easily  told  a  personal  trouble  to  the 
brother  of  La  Cartuja  than  to  any  human  being 
I  have  ever  met. 

When  we  returned  to  Burgos,  officers  were 
taking  their  evening  ride  under  the  immense 
poplars  of  the  Quinta.  We  turned  into  a  wine- 
shop where  a  violent  quarrel  was  going  on  between 
two  men  and  a  woman  in  the  living-room.  Every 
moment  we  expected  to  see  the  flash  of  a  knife, 
but  nothing  happened,  and  I  suppose  that  among 
these  excitable  people  a  very  slight  difference  of 
opinion  gives  rise  to  a  great  deal  of  language.  The 
man  who  served  us  remained  quite  unmoved, 
though  he  apologised  to  us  for  the  noise.  The 
after-dinner  promenade  on  the  Espolon  was  in 
striking  contrast  to  that  of  the  night  before.  The 
cold  wind  which  had  been  blowing  all  day  was  now 
almost  unbearable.  There  were  a  fair  number  of 
people  listening  to  the  band,  but  they  were  closely 
muffled  up,  and  their  gaiety  seemed  forced  and 
their  tempers  brittle.  After  a  quick  turn  to  try 
to  keep  warm,  we  were  glad  to  seek  the  shelter 
of  our  hotel. 


CHAPTER    XII 

A    CITY    OF    CHURCHES SANTA    AGUEDA,    SAN    NICOLAS, 

SAN     GIL THE     CHARACTER    OF    BURGOS THE    CID THE 

CASA    DE    MIRANDA THE    RAILWAY    STATION  ;    "  COSAS    DE 

ESPANA  " CRUELTY     TO     ANIMALS TIME-TABLES THE 

PRIEST    OF    LOGRONO    AND     HIS     COMPANION "  LIFE "    IN 

CORUNA THE     BOROUGH     ROAD FIRST     SIGHT     OF     OLIVE 

TREES CASTILIAN     EVENING "  AGUA     FRESCA  !  " CIVIL 

GUARDS "  MERENGUES  " THB    NATIONAL     VICE VALLA- 

DOLID OUR     THOUGHTFUL     COMPANION EL      ESCORIAL— 

MADRID 

reflection,  I  see  that  nothing  could  better 
illustrate  the  ecclesiastical  interest  and  im- 
portance of  Burgos  than  the  fact  that,  after  a 
day  and  a  half,  except  for  our  mistaken  quest  of  a 
change  of  hotels,  we  had  not  so  much  as  entered 
the  city.  Without  any  conscious  intention  of 
avoiding  it,  we  had  passed  from  the  cathedral, 
as  if  underground,  into  the  churches  which  are 
flung  out  along  the  base  of  the  hill  like  a  line 
of  skirmishers,  had  emerged  upon  the  Castillo, 
descended  and  walked  westward  to  Las  Huelgas, 
lounged  upon  the  Espolon,  and  walked  eastward 
to  La  Cartuja.  If  we  had  been  forbidden  the  city 
we  could  not  have  more  scrupulously  walked 
round  it.  Even  on  the  morning  of  our  third  day, 

218 


A   CITY   OF   CHURCHES  219 

when  we  set  out  without  any  definite  plan,  we 
found  ourselves  drawn  irresistibly  into  the  cathedral 
through  the  noble  Puerta  del  Sarmental.  As  we 
passed  through  the  great  bronze  screens  to  hear 
mass,  the  little  sacristan,  who  spoke  English, 
greeted  us  with  a  sly,  narrow  smile,  as  if  he  were 
seeing  for  the  thousandth  time  the  inevitable 
submission  of  the  stranger  to  the  magic  of  the 
building.  But  except  for  a  tantalising  glimpse 
under  the  influence  of  the  mass  of  some  co- 
ordinating principle,  we  were  no  nearer  to  the 
secret  of  that  magic.  It  was  true  that  by  this 
time  we  had  grasped  the  general  plan  of  the 
cathedral,  could  see  the  relation  of  the  chapels 
to  the  central  shrine,  and  could  find  our  way 
without  hesitation  to  points  of  special  beauty, 
such  as  the  retablo  of  Santa  Ana,  or  the  little 
early  chapel  next  to  that  of  the  Constable,  but 
this  only  increased  the  effect  of  conflict  and  dis- 
organisation. Yet  the  emotional  effect  of  Burgos 
Cathedral  is  somehow  that  of  unity,  and  one  is 
forced  back  to  the  conclusion  suggested  by  the 
illusion  of  growth,  of  becoming,  that  the  key  to 
it  is  in  the  fourth  dimension.  Unless,  as  yesterday, 
the  illuminating  power  of  a  boy's  voice  would  have 
seemed  to  indicate,  the  successive  builders  with 
an  incredible  subtlety  of  art  allowed  for  a  solvent 
of  the  incompatible  elements  of  beauty  in  sound. 
One  striking  character  of  religion  belongs  to 
Burgos  Cathedral :  it  prevails  upon  the  imagina- 
tion, apart  from  judgment  and  against  the  will. 


220  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

The  more  important  churches  of  Burgos  are 
all  at  the  base  of  the  hill,  and  practically  out- 
side the  city.  Santa  Agueda,  where  Alfonso  VI. 
was  compelled  by  the  Cid  to  purge  himself  by 
an  oath,  thrice  repeated,  from  the  charge  of 
assassinating  his  brother,  was  closed  for  repairs 
to  the  roof,  so  we  made  our  way  northward  to 
San  Nicolas  arid  San  Gil.  The  confusion  of  my 
notes  at  this  point  seems  to  indicate  that  we  had 
seen  enough  of  churches  and  were  beginning  to 
suffer  from  a  plethora  of  impressions.  Certain 
things  I  remember,  but  I  cannot  say  to  which 
church  they  belonged.  There  were,  for  example, 
a  quite  satisfactory  pulpit,  decorated  with  a  small 
pattern  in  low  relief  of  gilded  iron,  some  in- 
teresting tombs  of  marble  inlet  in  black  stone, 
early  Flemish  pictures,  and  a  good  copy  of  Da 
Vinci's  Magdalene,  and  a  very  curious  figure  of 
the  Virgin,  Byzantine  in  character,  and,  unless 
my  memory  deceives  me,  with  real  hair.  More 
clearly  I  remember  a  bored  sacristan  coming  to 
life  as  he  showed  us  vestments — copes,  chasubles, 
and  dalmatics  of  the  fourteenth  century,  and  still 
in  use  on  high  festivals,  of  dark  violet,  red  and 
gold,  and  wonderful  faded  purple  hues  resembling 
those  of  the  crocus. 

Burgos  lies  roughly  in  the  form  of  an  in- 
verted right-angled  triangle,  the  line  of  churches 
forming  the  base,  and  the  river  front,  including 
the  Espolon,  the  hypotenuse.  San  Gil  stands  in 
the  right  angle,  at  the  extreme  north  of  the 


CHARACTER   OF   BURGOS         221 

city.  From  this  point  we  descended  into  the 
still  unexplored  triangular  mass  of  buildings, 
finding  ourselves  eventually  in  the  large  irregular 
Plaza  Mayor,  which  communicates  with  the 
Espolon  by  an  archway  under  the  Town  Hall 
or  Casa  Consistorial.  The  general  impression 
we  received  was  expressed  by  James  when  he 
said  that  beside  the  cathedral  Burgos  does  not 
matter.  Nothing  apparently  is  made  there, 
but  it  has  an  atmosphere  of  quiet  prosperity 
not  unlike  that  of  an  English  cathedral  town. 
What  few  traces  of  occupation  we  saw  were  all 
connected  with  pastoral  or  agricultural  life,  as  if 
the  city  were  mainly  a  market  centre  for  the 
surrounding  country.  Wool  was  the  article  most 
in  evidence.  In  the  comparatively  wide  space  of 
the  Calle  del  Huerto  del  Rey  we  saw  a  resting 
cavalcade  of  laden  mules  which  had  apparently 
just  come  to  town.  The  men  and  women  sat  on 
the  pavement  as  if  their  part  of  the  business  was 
over.  Most  of  the  men  wore  olive-green  corduroy 
trousers,  with  a  fancy  zig-zag  stripe,  and  broad  red 
sashes  round  their  waists.  The  large  market-house 
was  overflowing  with  fruit  and  vegetables,  and  on 
the  stalls  outside  were  farming  implements  for 
sale  ;  shearing-blades  and  reaping-hooks,  and  queer 
little  wooden  peaked  shoes  which  the  reapers  wear 
on  their  left  hands. 

These  hints  of  rural  occupation  give  to  Burgos 
a  certain  attractive  homeliness  not  unlike  that  of 
>lia  middle-aged  person  who  has  settled   down  to 


222  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

country  pursuits  after  a  hot  and  romantic  youth. 
The  age  of  cities,  like  the  age  of  people,  does  not 
depend  upon  the  length  of  time  they  have  been  in 
existence — there  are  cities  that  look  as  if  they  had 
turned  old  in  an  hour — and  in  spite  of  her  ancient 
history  Burgos  is  middle-aged  rather  than  old  in 
character.  She  is  not  yet  reminiscent,  she  is  well 
preserved  and  too  full  of  a  sober  cheerfulness  to  be 
called  venerable ;  she  has  "  warmed  both  hands 
before  the  fire  of  life,"  but  she  is  by  no  means 
"  ready  to  depart."  Religion  is  now,  as  ever,  of 
course,  her  principal  interest,  and  for  the  rest,  she 
carries  on  just  enough  business  of  a  dignified  sort 
to  pass  the  time  away  and  keep  things  going.  It 
is  as  if,  remembering  her  past,  a  sense  of  humour, 
rather  than  lack  of  energy,  prevented  her  taking 
part  in  the  "  progressive  "  movement  which  at  the 
present  moment  seems  to  be  affecting  most  of  the 
other  cities  of  Spain.  She  has  had  enough  of 
excitement,  she  only  wants  to  cultivate  her  garden 
— that  strange  garden  of  corn  and  olives — and  to 
grow  old  beautifully.  Being  so  far  from  the  sea, 
her  wish  is  likely  to  be  gratified. 

The  history  of  Burgos  is  the  history  of  Old 
Castile.  Once  the  seat  of  the  Castilian  kings,  the 
city  gave  birth  to  the  most  famous  flower  of 
Spanish  chivalry,  the  Cid.  The  site  of  the  house 
where  he  was  born,  the  Solar  del  Cid,  can  still  be 
seen  on  the  mound  of  the  Castillo,  where  he  was 
married  to  Ximena.  By  his  own  wish  they  were 
buried  at  the  Convent  of  San  Pedro  de  Cardeiia,  a 


THE    CASA   DE   MIRANDA         223 

few  miles  beyond  La  Cartuja,  and  after  strange 
wanderings  their  bones  are  preserved  in  a  glass 
case,  resembling  that  of  a  museum,  in  the  little 
chapel  of  the  Casa  Consistorial  of  Burgos.  We 
were  taken  to  see  these  relics  by  an  official  who 
spat  on  the  floor,  and  whose  gorgeous  uniform 
made  us  hesitate  to  offer  the  coins  he  nonchalantly 
accepted.  Besides  the  bones  of  the  Cid  and 
Ximena,  the  Casa  Consistorial  contains  a  very 
I  beautiful  Flemish  painting  of  Santa  Lucia,  and  a 
good  modern  picture  of  an  incident  in  the  life  of 
I  the  local  hero. 

On  the  flat  and  shady  south  bank  of  the  river, 
| Burgos  gives  herself  a  little  more  room,  as  if  in  the 
ittempt  to  establish  a  residential  quarter  and  a 
>ocial   life   distinct   from   that   of    the   cathedral, 
te  can  imagine  that,  with  the  removal  of  the 
>urt  to  Toledo,  and  finally  to  Madrid,  a  few  of 
more  important  families  settled  here,  keeping 
ip  the  old  order  and  looking  down  a  little  upon 
:he  mushroom  society  of  the  new  capitals.    Two  at 
^east  of  their  palaces  remain.     The  most  interesting 
[s  the  Casa  de  Miranda,  a  dilapidated  Renaissance 
milding    with   a    central    Patio    surrounded    by 
Corinthian  columns.     As  if  any  attempt  to  set  up 
separate  life  from  that  of  the  cathedral,  which 
|s  the  raison  d'etre  of  Burgos,  were  bound  to  fail 
rom  want  of  vitality,  it  is  here  that  Burgos  looks 
ially   old.      Decay,   which    is    absent   from   the 
parlier  buildings  on  the  north  side  of  the  river, 
ind  from  Las  Huelgas  and  La  Cartuja,   is  the 


224  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

characteristic  note  of  the  Casa  de  Miranda.  The 
ragged  women  and  children  who  prowl  about  the 
ruined  court  and  broken  staircase  to  pounce  upon 
the  casual  visitor,  as  they  pounced  upon  us,  only 
give  point  to  the  utter  desolation  of  the  place, 
which  is  oddly  antique  Roman  in  its  effect.  By  a 
strange  irony,  the  motto  inscribed  upon  the  coats 
of  arms  is  the  single  word  "  Paz"  Again,  it 
seems  to  me,  one  is  reminded  that  the  real  vitality 
of  Spain  is  a  spiritual  vitality.  The  peace  of  La 
Cartuja  is  the  living  peace  of  adjustment  which  a 
really  vital  thing  will  always  make  with  whatever 
changes  of  environment,  but  the  peace  of  the  Casa 
,de  Miranda  is  the  peace  of  death. 

In  anticipation  of  our  long  journey  to  Madrid 
— for  we  had  reluctantly  decided  that  it  was 
impossible  to  visit  both  Toledo  and  Segovia  in 
the  time  at  our  disposal — we  spent  a  lazy  day, 
lounging  about  the  Espolon,  wandering  through 
the  market,  and  returning  again  and  again  to 
the  cathedral.  When  we  said  good-bye  to  the 
little  sacristan  who  had  so  sympathetically  guided 
us,  he  said  in  a  tone  of  comfortable  prediction 
rather  than  of  inquiry  : 

"  You  will  come  here  again." 

Our  train  was  timed  to  start  at  five  o'clock. 
We  found  the  station  already  crowded  with  poor 
people  squatting  on  the  platforms  as  if  they  had  j 
been  camped  out   there  for  several   hours.     The 
impression  was  that  they  were  not  waiting  for  any  It] 
particular  train,  but  that  they  hoped  rather  againsl 


CRUELTY  TO   ANIMALS 


225 


hope  that  presently  a  train  would  come  along 
which  would  be  kind  enough  to  take  them  to  their 
destination.  The  reason  for  this  did  not  appeal  to 
us  at  the  time,  but  later,  when  we  were  leaving 
Madrid,  we  suffered  an  experience  which  enabled 
us  to  understand  why  the  more  important  stations 
on  the  Spanish  main  lines  of  railway  are  always 
crowded  with  poor  people.  It  is  one  of  the  cosas 
de  Espana  which  are  apparently  accepted  as  un- 
alterable. Nothing,  indeed,  is  more  remarkable  to 
a  stranger  than  the  fatalistic  patience  with  which 
so  ardent  a  people  submit  to  official  blundering 
and  mismanagement. 

While  we  were  waiting  a  cattle  train  pulled  up 
for  a  few  minutes  by  the  platform  where  we  stood, 
and  this  gave  us  an  illustration  of  a  painful  defect 
in  the    character   of    the   Spanish   people ;    their 
terrible  indifference  to  the  sufferings  of  animals. 
A  young  bullock  had  fallen    down,  with  others, 
all  apparently  in  desperate  need  of  water,  crowded 
upon  it,  and  one  of  its  hind  legs  protruded  between 
1  lithe   bars   of  the   truck.       Nothing   was   done   to 
i||release  it,  but  a  porter  seized  its  leg  and  roughly 
thrust  it  back,  anyhow,  out  of  the  way.     He  did 
this,  not  cruelly,  but  as  if  he  were  handling  an 
;,||in animate  object,  which  made  the  action  all  the 
ore   significant   of  a   fundamental    insensibility. 
dlllf  there   was  not  time  to   unload  the  truck   it 
lellwould  have  been  kinder  to  shoot  the  bullock,  and 
ijlthis  might  easily  have  been  done,  as  there  were 
«,t||aiiy  number  of  armed  officials  about  the  station. 
15 


226  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

When  our  train  came  in  we  climbed  up  into  an 
empty  compartment  at  the  end  of  a  coach,  con- 
gratulating ourselves  on  our  surprising  good 
fortune,  for  all  the  rest  of  the  train  seemed  to  be 
crowded.  We  had  hardly  settled  our  ruck-sacks 
in  the  racks,  however,  before  a  young  man  came 
round  from  the  next  compartment,  which  was 
filled,  and  advised  us  to  change  our  seats.  We 
did  not  clearly  understand  him  at  first,  and  natu- 
rally supposed  that  he  wanted  more  room  for 
himself  and  his  friends,  but  on  his  pinching  his 
nose  and  pointing  to  the  door  of  the  corridor 
with  the  single  word  "Malo!"  we  grasped  his 
meaning,  as  no  doubt  the  discerning  reader  will. 
The  end  compartment  of  the  usually  crowded  ; 
third-class  coach  on  a  Spanish  railway  is  practically 
waste  room  for  anybody  with  human  senses,  at 
any  rate  in  summer.  While  on  the  subject  of 
Spanish  railways,  it  is  only  fair  to  mention  theii 
virtues.  The  trains,  though  slow,  are  general!; 
punctual  in  starting  and  arriving,  and  the  official 
time-tables  are  a  perfect  joy  to  the  methodical 
mind.  In  every  case,  in  addition  to  the  name  of 
the  station  and  the  time  of  arrival,  the  distance 
and  the  first,  second,  and  third  class  fares  are 
printed  in  parallel  columns,  so  that  you  can  see 
at  a  glance  exactly  how  far  you  are  going  and 
what  it  will  cost  you  to  a  centimo. 

We  accepted  the  friendly  warning  and  tumble< 
out  of  the  carriage,  to  rush  along  the  platfori 
seeking  another  place  in  the  train,  which  seeme< 


THE   PRIEST   OF   LOGRONO       227 

full  to  overflowing  and  was  just  about  to  start. 
The  height  of  Continental  trains  above  the  plat- 
form isn't  conducive  to  finding  seats  in  a  hurry, 
and  probably  we  should  have  been  left  behind  but 
for  somebody  who  good-naturedly  and  excitedly 
hailed  us.  In  climbing  up,  encumbered  with  my 
ruck-sack  and  walking-stick,  I  stumbled,  and  a 
very  white  and  singularly  beautiful  hand  was 
stretched  out  to  aid  me.  As  I  picked  myself  up 
with  confused  thanks  I  saw  that  the  hand  belonged 
to  a  priest,  with  pale,  hollow  cheeks,  and  a  profile 
of  extraordinary  strength  and  delicacy  combined. 
He  reminded  me  a  little  of  the  portraits  of 
Savonarola.  Although  it  was  evident  that  he  was 
very  unwell  and  that  our  blundering  entrance  had 
shaken  him  considerably  more  than  it  had  us,  he 
kept  his  white  hand  on  my  arm,  asking  if  I  were 
hurt  with  an  expression  of  the  deepest  concern. 
He  seemed  not  only  without  thought  of  himself 
but  absolutely  incapable  of  considering  his  own 
comfort,  and  this  led  to  as  pretty  a  piece  of  human 
helpfulness  between  two  men  of  widely  differing 
types  as  I  have  ever  seen. 

Sitting  immediately  opposite  to  the  priest  was 
a  man  whom  we  took  to  be  a  commercial  traveller. 
Apparently  it  was  he  who  had  called  us  to  the 
carriage,  and  we  found  that  he  spoke  a  few  words 
of  English.  There  was  nothing  to  show  that  he 
and  the  priest  were  more  than  acquaintances  of  a 
journey,  but  an  affectionate  son  could  not  have 
looked  after  his  ailing  father  with  a  more  womanly 


228  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

tenderness.  This,  apparently,  did  not  proceed 
from  abstract  reverence  for  the  priesthood ;  from 
his  appearance  and  conversation  the  man — he  was 
a  stiff-built  fellow  of  about  thirty — was  a  thorough 
though  genial  blackguard.  In  England  he  would 
have  passed  for  a  "  bookie "  of  the  coarser  type. 
He  settled  the  priest  in  his  corner,  putting  a  valise 
under  his  head,  finding  his  water-bottle  and  attend- 
ing to  his  comfort  in  a  dozen  little  thoughtful  ways. 
The  priest  submitted  to  these  ministrations  with 
the  grateful  helplessness  of  a  tired  child. 

Resuming  his  seat  with  an  indulgent,  almost 
contemptuous  jerk  of  his  head  in  the  direction  of 
the  object  of  his  kindness,  as  if  he  wouldn't  have 
us  suppose  that  he  had  any  sympathy  with  that 
sort  of  person,  the  big  man  began  to  talk  to  us  in 
a  mixture  of  Spanish  and  very  bad  English.  His 
companion,  he  said,  was  "  quite  high  up,"  the 
"  chief  priest,"  in  fact,  of  Logrono,  on  his  way  to 
spend  a  holiday  with  friends  at  Medina.  He 
himself  was  going  to  Coruiia,  where  he  meant  to 
have  a  good  time,  and  he  went  on  to  express  a 
startlingly  depraved  point  of  view  in  some  of  the 
foulest  language  I  have  ever  heard.  There  were 
many  Englishmen  in  Coruiia,  said  the  genial 
blackguard,  and  when,  as  with  an  unflattering 
conception  of  the  tastes  and  habits  of  travelling 
Englishmen,  he  impressively  described  to  us  the 
extraordinary  cheapness  of  worldly  pleasures  in 
that  city,  I  glanced  involuntarily  at  the  priest, 
who  lay  with  his  eyes  closed,  he  said,  with  a 


FIRST   SIGHT   OF   OLIVES 


229 


contemptuous  wave  of  his  hand,  "  It's  all  right ; 
he  not  know  English."  Our  friend  had  been  to 
England ;  what  he  did  there  Heaven  only  knows, 
but  he  had  brought  back  at  least  two  enthusiastic 
memories ;  of  Lime  Street,  Liverpool,  and  of  the 
Borough  Road. 

His  intentions  were  friendly  and  companionable, 
and  his  touching  devotion  to  a  weaker  man  would 
have  redeemed  a  pirate,  but  his  range  of  subjects 
for  conversation  was  limited  to  those  which  are 
apt  to  become  tiresome.  I  was  looking  out  of  the 
window,  wishing  that  he  would  find  something 
fresh  to  talk  about,  watching  the  interminable 
unfolding  of  the  level  plain  and  wondering  at  the 
number  of  what  I  took  to  be  willows  in  so  dry 
a  place,  when  the  big  man  touched  my  arm  and 
said,  "  Olives."  The  sympathetic  reading  of  my 
thoughts,  as  if  he  had  known  instinctively  that 
I  had  never  seen  olive  trees  before  and  would  be 
glad  to  have  them  pointed  out,  by  a  man  whom 
I  had  been  inclined  to  dismiss  as  a  gross-minded 
bore,  was  a  wholesome  reproof. 

They  were  olive  trees,  and  their  immediate 
gain  in  interest  for  me  on  being  told  so  proved 
once  more  how  completely  one's  eyes  are  at  the 
mercy  of  the  associated  ideas  in  the  brain  behind 
them.  I  will  not  pretend  that  I  did  not  find  the 
olives  ten  times  more  beautiful  than  when  I  had 
supposed  them  willows.  For  the  rest,  they  were 
very  like  willows,  with  their  soft,  grey-green 
foliage  and  rounded,  leaning  shapes.  Only  when 


230  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

one  of  them  spun  slowly  into  view  near  the  train, 
one  saw  that  its  tortured  limbs  had  a  character 
which  belonged  to  no  willow. 

With  the  advance  of  evening  the  spirit  of  the 
Castilian  plain  was  beginning  shyly  to  creep  out 
as  if  from  the  distant  mountains,  whose  vague 
purple  was  deepening  every  instant.  The  hot 
adobe  walls  of  the  little  isolated  towns,  huddled 
as  if  for  protection  about  their  tall  windowless 
churches,  grew  redder  and  redder  as  the  sun 
dropped  lower,  and  a  grey  film  of  shadow,  like 
the  frosting  breath  of  the  night  wind,  spread  over 
the  surface  of  the  corn.  Against  this  cool  back- 
ground the  procession  of  poplar  trees  beside  the 
Arlanzon,  which  kept  more  or  less  close  com- 
pany with  the  line,  each  tree  being  edged  with 
shadow  which  was  only  a  stronger  note  of  clear 
colour,  stood  out  with  an  extraordinary  precision 
and  economy  of  green.  So  intense  were  they, 
and  so  free  from  the  grosser,  woodier  character 
of  trees,  that  they  suggested  green  flames  issuing 
from  the  ground. 

At  every  station,  as  the  train  drew  up,  with 
the  noise  of  the  brakes  was  mingled  the  long- 
drawn  cry  of  "A-a-gua  fresca  !  "  We  were  afraid 
to  drink  water,  and  at  one  place  we  bought  wine 
of  a  lean,  fierce-eyed  old  woman,  who  watched  the 
coins  in  my  hand  as  she  filled  up  the  bottle  from 
a  leather  flask,  as  if  she  were  afraid  that  I  meant 
to  dart  away  without  paying  her.  At  the  next 
station  we  saw  a  boy  on  the  platform  with  a  large 


"LIFE"   IN   CORUNA  231 

basket  of  apricots.  I  doubted  if  they  were  for 
sale,  but  James  rashly  attempted  a  bargain,  fram- 
ing his  question  so  that  it  sounded  like  "  What 
are  they  for  ?"  "Para  comer ;  para  el  estomago" 
("For  to  eat;  for  the  stomach"),  said  the  boy, 
with  an  illustrative  gesture,  which  set  the  train 
in  a  roar.  At  another  place  a  party  of  Civil 
Guards  were  preparing  their  supper  in  their 
cuartel,  which  was  part  of  the  station  building. 
It  was  queer  to  see  these  grave,  uniformed  men 
about  this  domestic  occupation,  one  returning 
from  the  village  with  bread  and  bottles  of  wine, 
another  cleaning  a  saucepan,  but  the  scene  was 
an  apt  illustration  of  their  curiously  isolated  and 
independent  life,  for  they  are  discouraged  from 
associating  with  the  rest  of  the  people.  One 
seldom  sees  them  talking  to  anybody  but  each 
other,  and  they  move  through  crowds  with  a 
quiet,  preoccupied  look,  as  if  they  were  about 
some  secret  mission. 

At  Venta  de  Banos  our  talkative  friend,  still 
eloquent  of  the  extraordinary  cheapness  of  "  life  " 
in  Corufia,  got  out  with  a  "  Good  night,  sirs," 
which  sounded  strangely  sturdy  against  the  lisping 
Castilian  on  the  platform.  The  priest,  who  had 
roused  himself  to  shake  hands  with  his  benefactor, 
bringing  them  for  a  moment  together  in  a  poig- 
nant contrast  of  spiritual  refinement  and  genial 
brutality,  now  began  to  make  preparations  for 
refreshment.  It  was  comforting  to  see  that  one 
so  unworldly  was  evidently  well  cared  for  in 


232  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

Logrono.  He  was  provided  with  a  dainty  chip 
basket,  such  as  women  use  for  light  slopping  in 
England,  covered  with  a  white  napkin  and  vine 
leaves.  A  white  rose  was  tucked  into  the  folds 
of  the  napkin.  He  made  the  pretty  courtesy, 
universal  in  Spain,  of  offering  what  he  had  to 
his  fellow-travellers,  but  this  time  we  understood 
that  it  was  not  merely  a  courtesy,  for  he  pressed 
a  small  packet  upon  us. 

"  tferengues?  he  said,  with  a  lingering  delicacy 
of  intonation  which  seemed  to  describe  the  separ- 
ate ingredients  of  the  fairy-like  shells  of  cream  so 
perfectly  as  to  leave  "  Meringues  "  by  comparison 
a  clumsy  sound.  "  Huevos,  crema,  leche,  azucar — 
merengues"  he  explained,  enumerating  the  ingredi- 
ents as  if  to  assure  us  of  their  purity.  "  Me-ren- 
gues"-—I  can  see  now  the  dainty  packet  of  crisply 
folded  white  paper  upheld  in  his  delicate  finger- 
tips, with  his  very  sweet,  angular  smile  beyond, 
as  he  syllabled  the  word.  He  spoke  no  English, 
but  his  fine  intelligence  made  our  little  Spanish 
go  a  very  long  way,  and  looking  back  I  am  sur- 
prised at  our  ease  of  intercourse,  carried  on  as  it 
was  in  broken  phrases,  with  a  nod  of  the  head  or 
a  gesture  of  the  hands  to  help  out  the  meaning. 
We  were  glad  to  learn  that  his  indisposition  was 
nothing  more  than  a  severe  headache.  Evidently 
he  suffered  acutely  from  the  long  journey,  and 
he  spoke  with  envy  of  the  speed  of  railway  tra- 
velling in  England.  But  his  friends  at  Medina,  he 
said,  would  soon  make  him  a  new  man.  Appar- 


THE   NATIONAL   VICE  233 

ently  he  led  a  very  retired  life,  and  knew  little 
of  his  own  country ;  Vitoria,  indeed,  was  the  only 
important  town  he  had  visited.  When  his  meal 
was  finished  he  accepted  a  cigarette,  which  he 
smoked  politely,  though  evidently  without  much 
enjoyment.  The  tobacco,  he  said,  was  a  little 
strong.  Afterwards,  when  I  had  lit  the  most 
delicately  flavoured  cigarette  I  have  ever  smoked, 
out  of  his  case,  I  could  only  marvel  at  his  per- 
severance with  mine.  It  gave  us  a  queer  little 
shock,  by  the  way,  to  see  that  for  all  his  personal 
refinement  he  was  not  free  from  the  national 
vice  of  spitting. 

Little  by  little  the  warm  colours  faded  from 
the  earth,  leaving  it  by  contrast  extraordinarily 
cold  against  a  western  sky  of  clear  wine  red.  It 
was  as  if  the  bed  of  the  ancient  lake  were  filled 
with  the  ghost  of  its  former  waters.  Just  at  the 
horizon  the  level-topped  hills  made  a  hard  violet 
line  against  the  sky,  but  within  the  circle  every- 
thing was  vague  and  uncertain.  One  large  red 
star  burned  low  in  the  south,  and  presently  the 
priest,  half  laughingly  and  half  seriously,  let 
down  the  right-hand  window  which  he  had  closed 
against  the  cold  north  wind,  so  that  we  might 
look  at  the  sickle  moon,  but  not  through  glass. 
Night  came  quickly  by  the  fading  of  light  with- 
out any  loss  of  clearness  in  the  sky,  which  was 
absolutely  cloudless. 

At  Valladolid  James  and  I,  being  dinnerless, 
made  a  hasty  meal  of  bread  and  coffee,  the  priest 


234  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

standing  in  the  door  of  the  carriage  in  a  fever  of 
anxiety  lest  we  should  miss  the  train.  We  three 
had  the  compartment  to  ourselves,  and,  indeed, 
by  this  time  there  were  but  few  passengers  in 
the  whole  carriage.  We  lay  down  on  the  long 
seats.  I  did  not  sleep,  nor  did  I  want  to  sleep, 
and  I  don't  think  James  was  sleeping,  but  after 
a  time  the  priest  got  up  very  gently  and  went 
into  the  next  compartment,  where  I  heard  him 
asking  a  man  to  stop  whistling  lest  he  should 
wake  us.  After  that  I  felt  compelled  to  feign 
sleep,  but  when,  an  hour  later,  the  train  stopped 
at  Medina  and  I  heard  him  saying  "Adios!" 
to  James  in  a  whisper,  and  begging  him  not  to 
disturb  me,  I  could  keep  up  the  pretence  no 
longer.  As  he  stood  at  the  door  he  gently  chided 
the  priest,  who  had  come  to  meet  him,  for  being 
clumsy  with  his  valise,  and  so  letting  in  the  cold 
air  upon  the  "  caballeros  Ingleses"  I  shall  always 
be  glad  that  we  shared  the  beauty  of  the  Castilian 
sunset  with  so  perfect  a  type  of  the  Spanish 
gentleman. 

1  was  awakened  by  the  train  crashing  through 
a  granite  country.  We  had  passed  through  Avila 
asleep,  and  now  the  peaks  of  the  Guadarrama 
were  violet  upon  a  pale  dawn.  By  the  time  we 
reached  Escorial  the  world  was  flooded  with  a 
cold  grey  light,  in  which  the  great  building 
loomed  up  dim  and  ghostly  out  of  the  mountain- 
side like  a  tomb  of  giants.  It  was  now  a  quarter 
past  four,  and  already  men  and  women  were  astir, 


MADRID  235 

moving  mysteriously  in  a  stony  desert,  among 
twisted  olives  and  dwarf  oaks.  Soon  we  came 
to  a  pleasant  suburb  of  villas  and  gardens  with 
trams  running  in  the  roads,  and  presently  we 
saw  the  cliff-like  elevation  of  the  Royal  Palace 
of  Madrid. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

BREAKFAST    IN    MADRID THE    BRIDGE    OF    SUICIDES 

THE    PUERTA   DEL  SOL THE    PRADO A   CAPITAL   WITHOUT 

CHARACTER THE   NEW  MADRID A  CITY   OF   PROHIBITIONS 

THE  HEAT MISTAKEN  FOR  BASQUES RISKING  SUN- 
STROKE  THE  PRADO  MUSEUM:  CLOSED THE  BOTANICAL 

GARDEN  I    CLOSED "  ALQUNA    COSA   FRESCA  " — MADRID    AT 

NIGHT PLEASURE    WITHOUT    GAIETY NIGHTMARES 

TTALF-PAST  five  in  the  morning  is  rather  an 
-*•  A  awkward  time  to  be  landed  in  a  strange 
capital.  Fortunately  the  buffet  was  open  and  a 
yawning  waiter  soon  provided  us  with  hot  coffee 
and  delicious  toasted  rolls.  I  don't  know  if  hot 
buttered  toast  is  the  popular  Madrilefio  break- 
fast, or  if  the  earliness  of  the  hour  suggested 
that  way  of  freshening  up  the  rolls  of  yesterday, 
but  anyhow,  as  James  observed,  it  is  "a  pleasant 
custom."  With  our  coffee  we  were  given  glasses 
of  cold  water  to  wash  it  down.  This  combina- 
tion of  cold  water  with  coffee  or  tea  or  chocolate 
we  found  to  be  universal  in  Madrid,  and  it  re- 
minded us  of  the  ingenious  plan  adopted  by  a 
friend  of  ours  when  reducing  his  daily  allowance 
of  beer.  He  would  call  for  a  glass  of  beer,  an 
empty  tumbler,  and  a  large  jug  of  water.  Holding 


BREAKFAST   IN   MADRID         237 

a  sip  of  beer  in  his  mouth,  he  would  wash  it 
down  with  a  tumblerful  of  water,  thus  with  a 
modest  half-pint  achieving  the  physical  sensations 
of  half  a  gallon.  We  diluted  our  coffee  with 
time  only,  spinning  out  our  meal  and  smoking 
many  cigarettes  in  the  large,  deserted  refresh- 
ment-room. 

The  station  being  outside  the  city,  we  in- 
tended to  leave  our  ruck-sacks  there  and  to 
explore  the  streets  until  a  reasonable  hour  of 
the  morning,  when  we  could  engage  rooms  at 
some  hotel.  We  could  not  find  anything  in  the 
nature  of  a  cloak-room,  however,  and  had  nearly 
repeated  the  mistake  we  made  in  Bilbao  of  giving 
up  our  bags  to  an  unauthorised  person,  when  a 
kindly  official  approached  us  and  advised  us  to 
leave  them  at  a  little  lodge  at  one  of  the  gates 
opening  into  the  court  of  the  station.  Here  a 
burly  man  said  "  Un  franco "  and  wrote  some- 
thing illegible  with  a  stump  of  pencil  on  the 
back  of  a  torn  fragment  of  railway  map,  which 
he  gave  to  us  for  a  receipt.  We  set  off  in 
what  we  supposed  to  be  the  direction  of  the 
city,  following  some  pleasant  gardens  on  the 
banks  of  a  carefully  economised  river  which  re- 
minded us  of  a  Chinese  landscape  such  as  that 
on  the  willow-pattern  plate.  We  imagined  that 
we  must  cross  the  river  to  reach  Madrid ;  but 
when  we  came  to  a  bridge,  which  I  see  now 
must  have  been  the  Puente  Verde,  we  recognised 
that  wherever  Madrid  might  be  it  was  not  across 


238  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

the  river.  I  think  it  must  have  been  here,  hy 
the  way,  that  Borrow  talked  to  the  man  who 
sold  oranges,  and  watched  the  gold  and  silver 
fish  in  the  green  sunny  waters.  On  reading  the 
passage  in  "The  Bible  in  Spain"  I  am  vividly  re- 
minded of  this  place.  James  was  confident  that 
we  ought  to  turn  back,  and  an  appeal  to  the 
compass  proved  him  right ;  instead  of  east  we 
were  going  north-west,  and  walking  away  from 
the  city.  We  turned  back  and  presently  struck 
the  tree-planted  Cuesta  (or  hill)  de  la  Vega  at 
the  south  end  of  the  Palace  Gardens. 

From  this  point  Madrid  has  rather  a  sinister 
look.  It  reminds  one  a  little  of  the  nightmare 
cities  designed  by  Martin,  and  this  character 
is  determined,  I  believe,  by  the  long  viaduct, 
seventy-five  feet  high,  which  carries  the  Calle 
de  Bailen  over  the  western  outlet  of  the  Calle 
de  Segovia.  I  am  not  surprised  that  suicides 
from  this  viaduct  are  so  frequent  that  special 
police  are  stationed  there  who  approach  you  un- 
easily if  you  only  look  over,  for  the  effect  is 
oddly  disturbing;  at  once  exciting  and  depress- 
ing. From  here,  too,  one  is  able  to  get  a  good 
idea  of  the  physical  features  of  the  city.  Madrid 
is  built  upon  a  wind-blown  plateau  scored  with 
watercourses,  and  the  Calle  de  Segovia  is  evi- 
dently made  in  what  was  once  the  bed  of  a 
torrent. 

We  were  now  at  the  western   extremity   of 
the  Calle  Mayor,  which,  as  we  remembered  from 


THE   PUERTA   DEL   SOL  239 

the  guide-book,  leads  into  the  Puerta  del  Sol, 
the  centre  of  the  city.  More  than  the  streets  of 
any  foreign  city  I  had  seen  this  comparatively 
narrow  and  rudely  paved  thoroughfare  reminded 
me  of  the  streets  of  London — of  course  with 
differences.  Supposing  the  direction  reversed,  we 
were  walking  as  if  westward  through  Fleet  Street 
and  the  Strand.  The  Casa  de  Ayuntamiento,  or 
Mansion  House,  occupied  the  site  of  the  Law 
Courts,  and  the  little  market,  delightfully  fresh 
and  green,  a  few  yards  farther  on,  might  have 
been  Covent  Garden.  Men  were  flushing  the 
pavements  with  hose-pipes,  and  already  the  sun 
was  so  hot  that  we  were  glad  to  walk  in  the 
shade.  The  suggestion  of  London  was  not  de- 
stroyed when  we  emerged  into  the  Puerta  del 
Sol.  Here,  indeed,  was  a  meaner  Trafalgar 
Square.  I  must  say  that  I  was  acutely  dis- 
appointed. The  name  —  I  did  not  know  its 
origin — had  prepared  me  for  a  vast  open  space 
of  an  architectural  magnificence  worthy  to  be 
"the  Gate  of  the  Sun."  I  had  imagined  some- 
thing like  my  vague  dreams  of  the  cities  of  the 
Incas.  Well,  the  Puerta  is  sunny  enough,  in 
all  conscience,  but  for  the  rest  it  is  an  awkward, 
irregular  oblong,  crossed  by  tramways,  and  sur- 
rounded by  shops  and  second-rate  hotels  —  a 
meaner  Trafalgar  Square,  in  fact.  The  uninter- 
esting Ministerio  de  la  Gobernacion,  or  Home 
Office,  stands  in  the  place  of  the  National  Gallery. 
The  actual  gateway,  once  the  eastern  entrance  to 


240  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

the  city,  which  gave  the  Puerta  its  name,  has  long 
since  been  moved  away.  I  may  say  that  my  first 
impression  of  a  resemblance  to  London  was  not 
destroyed  by  closer  acquaintance,  and  if  I  were 
asked  to  give  a  rough  and  ready  description  of 
Madrid,  I  should  say  that  it  is  like  a  clumsy 
combination  of  London  and  Paris  without  the 
special  charm  of  either. 

Ten  streets  open  into  the  Puerta  del  Sol. 
We  took  that  in  line  with  the  Calle  Mayor,  the 
Carrera  de  San  Jerdnimo — representing  the  Mall 
—which  leads  downhill,  passing  on  the  left  the 
Palacio  del  Congreso,  or  House  of  Commons, 
guarded  by  two  bronze  lions  made  from  captured 
cannon,  into  the  splendid  boulevards  of  the 
Prado  or  "meadow"  which  takes  the  place  of 
the  Green  and  St.  James's  Parks.  The  famous 
picture-gallery,  the  Prado  Museum,  may  be  said 
to  represent  Buckingham  Palace.  To  complete 
this  rough  topographical  comparison,  and  re- 
membering that  here  west  is  east,  Hyde  Park 
is  represented  by  the  Retiro  or  great  Park  of 
Madrid. 

We  had  now  crossed  the  city  from  west  to  east, 
and  the  earliness  of  the  hour  gave  us  the  undis- 
tracted  impression  of  a  private  view.  For  con- 
venience, Old  Madrid  may  be  described  as  an 
oblong  with  rounded  corners,  measuring  about  a 
mile  and  a  half  by  a  mile  and  a  quarter  with  its 
greater  length  from  north  to  south,  bounded  on 
the  east  by  the  Prado  and  on  the  west  by  the 


MADRID  241 

Gardens  of  the  Royal  Palace.  From  the  Puerta  del 
Sol  in  the  centre,  the  main  thoroughfares  radiate 
like  the  spokes  of  a  wheel,  and  their  outer  ends  are 
connected  by  encircling  streets  which  are  appro- 
priately called  Rondas.  North-east  of  the  Prado, 
a  fashionable  residential  quarter  of  large  houses, 
laid  out  in  severe  parallelograms,  is  rapidly  grow- 
ing ;  indeed  the  difference  between  a  map  of  1890 
and  one  of  1901  is  astonishing,  and  the  extension 
is  still  going  on. 

Apparently  the  site  of  Madrid  was  arbitrarily 
chosen  as  being  the  geographical  centre  of  Spain. 
It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  like  most  places— 
and  people — that  are  important  for  merely  arbi- 
trary reasons,  it  should  wear  the  look  of  trying  to 
justify  its  position  without  any  clear  idea  of  how 
to  do  so.  To  put  the  matter  brutally,  and  without 
reference  to  mere  size,  Madrid  is  not  big  enough 
for  its  boots.  It  contains  what  one  is  reduced  to 
calling  "  fine  buildings,"  but  the  general  note  of  its 
architecture  is  ambition  without  imagination.  Even 
the  Royal  Palace,  though  impressive  in  scale  and 
situation,  is  a  great  opportunity  bungled.  One 
might  suppose  that  having  no  definite  character 
of  her  own,  but  feeling  the  eyes  of  Spain  upon 
her,  Madrid  has  been  driven  into  spasmodic  and 
unrelated  attempts  to  imitate  the  character  of 
other  places — as  a  man  without  real  personality, 
but  forced  by  position  into  the  public  eye,  is  apt 
to  spend  his  life  in  a  series  of  "  poses." 

Madrid,  so  to  speak,  doesn't  mean  anything ; 
16 


242  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

she  is  merely  a  collection  of  buildings.  That  some 
of  them  happen  to  be  fine  buildings  doesn't  make 
her  any  more  significant.  Her  lack  of  meaning 
is  nowhere  more  apparent  than  in  her  churches, 
and  this  tempts  one  to  hazard  a  guess  why  as  a 
city  she  fails  to  touch  the  imagination.  The  real 
passion  of  Spain  is  religion,  and  though  Madrid 
is  the  geographical  and  political  centre  of  Spain, 
she  is  not  the  spiritual  centre.  Failing  to  express 
the  spiritual  life  of  the  country,  there  is  nothing 
else  for  her  to  express. 

In  other  countries  it  is  possible  for  a  city  to 
be  dissociated  from  religion  and  still  have  charac- 
ter. London  and  Paris,  for  example,  are  not 
peculiarly  significant  of  the  religious  life  of  Eng- 
land and  France.  Notre-Dame  is  far  from  being 
the  central  thought  of  Paris,  and  if  you  were 
asked  to  point  out  the  building  which  expresses 
the  soul  of  London  you  would  not,  I  think,  choose 
either  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  or  Westminster  Abbey. 
But  in  England  and  France  religion  is  not,  and  for 
centuries  has  not  been,  a  matter  of  the  supreme 
importance  that  it  is  in  Spain  ;  the  passionate  belief 
of  England  and  France  is  concerned  with  other 
things  than  religion.  Anything  passionately  be- 
lieved in  manages  to  express  itself  with  character 
and  dignity,  and  since  in  England  it  is  not  religion 
but  commerce  and  government  that  are  passion- 
ately believed  in,  the  character  and  dignity  of 
London  is  in  her  expression  of  commerce  and 
government.  The  matter  is  too  big  to  be  treated 


MADRID  243 

in  a  book  of  impressions  by  a  passing  observer,  but 
I  think  I  may  venture  to  say  that  the  ideas  of 
commerce  and  government  have  not  yet  taken 
the  place  of  religion  in  the  consciousness  of  Spain 
as  a  whole,  and  consequently  Madrid,  in  failing 
to  express  religion,  has  been  reduced  to  the  ex- 
pression of  beliefs  which  are  as  yet  merely  frag- 
mentary and  half-hearted.  She  is  not  yet  central 
in  the  soul  of  Spain  as  London  and  Paris  are 
central  in  the  souls  of  England  and  France. 

Madrid's  lack  of  any  but  a  geographical  and 
official  centrality  is  no  doubt  emphasised  by  un- 
fortunate physical  accidents.  For  one  thing,  the 
Royal  Palace  is  separated  by  the  whole  width  of 
the  city  from  the  quarters  of  the  aristocracy.  It 
is  as  if  Buckingham  Palace  were  plumped  down 
in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard  while  St.  James's  and 
Belgravia  were  planted  out  at  Shepherd's  Bush. 
There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  this  topo- 
graphical division  between  Court  and  Society  has 
any  political  significance,  but  it  is  not  without 
effect  in  depriving  Madrid  of  that  character  of 
organic  unity  which  should  belong  to  a  capital. 
Even  the  House  of  Lords  and  the  House  of 
Commons  are  at  opposite  ends  of  the  city. 

Still,  with  all  these  defects  of  organisation, 
Madrid  is  the  capital  of  Spain.  Borrow  found 
it  the  most  interesting  capital  in  the  world,  and 
after  observing  with  rather  significant  vagueness, 
"  I  will  not  dwell  upon  its  streets,  its  edifices,  its 
public  squares,  its  fountains,  though  some  of  these 


244 


A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 


are  remarkable  enough,"  he  gives  the  reason  why  he 
found  it  interesting,  "  the  population!"  That  reason 
remains  equally  important  to-day,  and  though  the 
present  population  of  Madrid  can  hardly  be  said 
to  be  so  "strictly  Spanish"  as  it  was  in  1835,  it 
still  resembles  the  population  of  other  capitals  in 
being  representative  of  the  whole  nation. 

It  seems  to  me  more  than  probable  that  the 
importance  of  Madrid  lies  in  the  future  ;  that,  in 
relation  to  the  life  of  Spain  as  a  whole,  she  is  a 
"  young  city."  Oddly  enough,  it  is  in  the  newer 
portion  of  the  city  which  lies  between  the  Boule- 
vards of  La  Castellana  and  Recoletos  and  the 
Calle  de  Alcala  that  one  begins  to  find  character, 
the  expression  of  a  vital  and  definite  meaning. 
Throughout  Spain  there  are  evidences  of  a  renewed 
commercial  and  political  activity,  and  if  it  is  true 
that,  at  the  same  time,  religion  is  losing  its  hold 
upon  the  masses  of  the  people,  Madrid  by  frankly 
and  whole-heartedly  expressing  a  belief  in  material 
progress,  and  social  and  political  organisation,  may 
well  become  the  real  as  well  as  the  geographical 
and  official  centre  of  Spain.  This  is  not  the  place 
to  compare  the  respective  merits  of  the  "  ideas " 
of  spiritual  and  material  progress — if,  indeed,  they 
are  really  incompatible.  One  may  regret  the  pass- 
ing of  Spain's  unique  spiritual  vitality,  if  it  is 
passing,  but  a  religion  which  is  no  longer  believed 
is  better  unexpressed  in  stone.  A  sincere  gas- 
works is  better  than  an  insincere  cathedral. 

Madrid's  opportunity,  then,  may  be  precisely 


THE   NEW   MADRID  245 

in  the  decline  of  that  unique  spiritual  vitality  of 
Spain  which  in  the  past  she  failed  to  express.  Cer- 
tainly, for  a  city  of  her  age,  she  presents  to  a  quite 
remarkable  degree  the  look  of  a  city  still  in  the 
making ;  and  consequently  one's  disappointment 
in  her  as  she  exists  is  a  little  relieved  by  acute 
curiosity  as  to  what  she  may  become,  /  Old  Madrid 
remains  a  geographical  expression,  by  comparison 
with  the  other  cities  of  Spain  almost  as  featureless 
as  the  North  Pole,  with  certain  romantic  traditions 
and  associations  which  are  not  recorded  by  any- 
thing that  appeals  to  the  imagination.  She  does 
not,  like  most  capitals,  reflect  the  character  and 
ideals  of  the  country  to  which  she  belongs.  She 
is  a  monument  to  a  blunder  which  may  be  disre- 
garded in  considering  the  spirit  and  history  of  old 
Spain  as  a  whole.  The  new  Madrid  is  apparently 
in  close  touch  with  the  development  of  the  new 
Spain  which  for  better  or  worse  is  emerging  from 
the  old  ;  and  from  indications  which  already  exist 
it  may  be  assumed  that  her  character  as  a  city  will 
reflect  the  character  of  that  development. 

These  impressions  of  Madrid  and  speculations 
about  her  future,  though  necessarily  superficial,  are 
slightly  more  considered  than  those  which  James 
and  I  exchanged  as  we  sat  rather  sleepily  on  a 
bench  in  the  shady  Paseo  del  Prado  in  the  early 
hours  of  a  July  morning ;  but  for  convenience  I 
set  them  down  before  going  on  to  describe  the  sum 
of  trivial  experiences  from  which  they  are  derived. 
The  line  of  boulevards  running  north  and  south 


246  A  SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

from  the  place  where  we  sat  recalls  the  Avenues  of 
the  Champs  Elysees  and  the  Bois  de  Boulogne 
without  the  Arc  de  Triomphe — which,  as  we  found 
later,  is  represented  here  by  the  Puerta  de  Alcalti 
in  the  Plaza  de  la  Independencia.  The  whole  of 
the  Prado  quarter  with  its  numerous  fountains  and 
monuments,  with,  indeed,  too  many  conflicting 
centres  of  interest,  though  less  happily  "  com- 
posed," is  an  even  pleasanter  place  for  lounging 
than  the  corresponding  one  in  Paris.  Perhaps  it 
gains  in  character  as  a  place  for  human  recreation 
and  refreshment  from  the  very  absence  of  design  ; 
the  interest  being  scattered,  so  to  speak,  without 
regard  to  the  general  effect,  as  one  would  break  up 
the  arrangement  of  furniture  in  a  room  to  encourage 
freedom  of  conversation.  The  look  of  the  quarter 
and  the  name  of  the  park  beyond,  the  Buen  Retiro 
or  "  Pleasant  Retreat,"  suggests,  as  James  re- 
marked, that  Madrid  is  "  a  good  place  to  get  out 
of."  A  small  circular  pit  to  collect  water  at  the 
base  of  every  tree  in  the  Paseo  is  a  significant 
indication  of  the  summer  heat,  which  we  were 
already  beginning  to  find  almost  overpowering. 

The  Museum  of  the  Prado,  a  long  building  of 
pale  brick  and  white  stone,  is  at  any  rate  externally 
a  model  of  what  a  picture  gallery  out  to  be,  though 
it  was  not  originally  intended  for  that  purpose  but 
for  a  Museum  of  Natural  History.  While  suffi- 
ciently attractive  and  dignified,  it  suggests  a  self- 
denying  modesty  in  the  architect,  as  if  he  meant 
you  to  see  at  once  that  a  building  of  that  size  and 


VELAZQUEZ;  PRADO   MUSEUM,  MADRID 


THE   CITY   OF   PROHIBITIONS      247 

yet  so  simple  must  contain  something  important. 
A  fine  bronze  figure  of  Velazquez  before  the  en- 
trance admirably  sums  up  the  nature  of  its  contents  ; 
nothing  more  is  wanted.  At  this  hour,  of  course, 
the  gallery  was  closed,  and  we  turned  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Botanical  Garden,  which  seemed  to 
promise  a  coolness  as  delightful  as  a  draught  of 
spring  water.  But  this  also  was  closed,  and  we 
already  had  the  first  beginnings  of  the  resentful 
feeling  which  afterwards  led  us  to  call  Madrid  the 
City  of  Prohibitions — "  A  place,"  as  James  put  it, 
"  chiefly  remarkable  for  the  number  of  things  you 
mustn't  do."  In  order,  as  he  said,  to  make  our  first 
impressions  as  complete  as  possible  before  anybody 
interfered  with  them,  we  walked  to  the  end  of  the 
Paseo  and  descended  the  hill  as  far  as  the  railway 
station  of  Mediodfa  in  the  extreme  south-east  corner 
of  the  city.  From  this  point  one  recognises  that  the 
long  line  of  boulevards  which  divides  old  Madrid 
from  the  eastern  suburb  is  formed,  like  the  Calle 
de  Segovia,  in  the  bed  of  an  ancient  watercourse. 

By  the  time  we  returned  to  the  Puerta  del  Sol 
to  choose  our  hotel  the  city  was  well  astir.  We 
were  struck  by  the  number  of  kerbstone  merchants 
and  also  by  the  frequency  of  Anglo-Saxon  types— 
amongst  them  the  inevitable  American  art  student 
walking  with  his  easel  in  the  direction  of  the  Prado. 
Being  in  the  capital,  we  thought  it  advisable  to 
select  reasonably  good  quarters,  and  made  our  first 
inquiries  at  a  decent  but  by  no  means  luxurious- 
looking  hotel  in  the  Puerta.  As  is  usual  and  ad- 


248 


A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 


visable  in  Spain,  we  suggested  approximate  terms 
to  a  dull -eyed  youth  in  the  vestibule,  who  shook 
his  head  and  replied : 

"  Beinte  " — for  so  he  pronounced  it — "pesetas  " 
("  Twenty  pesetas  "). 

It  was  quite  evident  that  he  named  the  sum  at 
random,  and  we  gently  remarked  that  we  didn't 
want  a  room  in  the  very  best  position,  but  he  only 
continued  bleating  stupidly : 

"  Beinte  pesetas" 

The  incident  struck  me  as  characteristic  of  the 
blindly  imitative  and  amateurish  way  in  which 
things  are  done  in  Madrid.  I  believe  you  can  put 
up  modestly  at  the  Ritz  in  Paris  for  the  equivalent 
of  "  Beinte  pesetas"  and  we  afterwards  learned 
that  good  accommodation  can  be  had  at  this  very 
hotel  in  Madrid  for  about  half  that  sum.  There  is 
nothing  offensive  in  high  terms  being  asked  on  a 
basis  of  observed  facts  with  a  reasonable  expecta- 
tion of  getting  them;  but  this  was  the  kind  of 
blundering  extortion  which  is  an  insult  to  the 
intelligence.  In  a  capital  one  expects  to  be  im- 
posed upon,  but  one  expects  it  to  be  done  skilfully 
and  with  an  air ;  it  was  the  clumsiness  of  the  thing 
that  angered  us.  We  turned  abruptly  away,  and 
then  the  youth  seemed  to  come  to  life  and  followed 
us  to  the  door  with  an  alternative  proposal,  which 
we  declined  to  listen  to.  At  the  Hotel  del  Uni- 
verso,  in  an  almost  equally  good  position,  we  were 
quite  comfortably  housed  for  nine  pesetas  each 
a  day. 


THE   CITY   OF   PROHIBITIONS     249 

When  we  put  ourselves  on  board  a  tramcar  to 
fetch  our  ruck-sacks  from  the  station  we  felt  that 
we  had  come  to  a  city  of  prohibitions  with  a  ven- 
geance. The  inside  of  the  car  was  plastered  with 
notices :  "  It  is  forbidden  to  smoke,"  "  It  is  for- 
bidden to  spit,"  "  It  is  forbidden  to  speak  to  the 
driver,"  "  Please  keep  your  tickets ; "  and  we  got 
off  to  collide  almost  with  a  post  bearing  a  board 
which  requested  us  to  "  Keep  to  the  left."  These 
notices,  though  of  course  perfectly  reasonable  in 
themselves,  have  a  singularly  irritating  effect  when 
they  occur  in  a  place  which  is  remarkable  rather 
for  its  lack  of  civil  organisation.  In  Germany  they 
would  be  quite  "  in  the  picture,"  but  in  Madrid 
they  somehow  give  the  impression  that  the  autho- 
rities have  suddenly,  and  without  thinking  of  their 
own  conditions,  imitated  the  customs  of  other 
places  and  are  consequently  overdoing  them.  One 
feels  that  they  are  not  related  to  any  central  scheme 
of  municipal  government.  They  suggest  not  so 
much  a  regard  for  the  general  comfort  as  a  vexa- 
tious interference  with  the  liberty  of  the  individual. 
Lately  I  read  in  a  newspaper  that  Madrid  has 
adopted  the  institution  peculiarly  alien  to  Southern 
life  and  needs,  as  one  would  suppose,  of  "  Sunday 
closing  "  of  wine-shops.  These  are  trivial  matters 
to  record ;  but  as  straws  show  the  way  of  the  wind, 
they  all  helped  to  make  up  the  impression  we 
received  in  Madrid  of  a  vague  uneasiness — like  the 
uneasiness  of  a  man  who  is  not  sure  of  himself, 
who  takes  his  cue  from  this  person  and  that,  and 


250  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

when  he  is  called  upon  to  be  firm,  hits  out  blindly. 
The  effect  of  the  notices  upon  James  was  amusing 
to  see ;  directly  he  boarded  a  tramcar  he  seemed 
seized  with  the  desire  to  smoke,  and  he  generally 
compromised  matters  by  standing  on  the  little 
platform  at  the  end,  where  he  could  enjoy  his 
cigarette  with  the  consciousness  that  he  was  half 
breaking  a  regulation. 

Before  we  got  back  to  our  hotel  we  had  begun 
to  recognise  that  the  summer  heat  of  Madrid  is  a 
very  serious  matter.  We  envied  the  tram  drivers 
and  conductors  their  suits  of  brown  holland  and 
the  soldiers  their  uniforms  of  grey-blue  linen. 
Evidently  the  question  of  summer  clothing  is  of 
grave  importance  to  the  dandy  of  Madrid.  A 
young  man  in  a  holland  knickerbocker  suit,  with 
a  pith  helmet  and  black  silk  stockings,  was  the 
centre  of  a  little  half-admiring,  half-critical  group 
of  his  acquaintances.  One  felt  that  he  was  the 
dernier  cri.  Fortunately  our  room  at  the  hotel 
looked  out  into  a  sort  of  well  where  the  sun  did 
not  penetrate,  and  the  room  itself  was  admirably 
arranged  to  give  not  only  the  feeling  but  the  look 
of  coolness,  with  a  stone  floor  and  walls  of  hard 
white  plaster.  The  top  of  the  tall  wardrobe  being 
chained  to  the  wall  suggested  earthquakes.  The 
only  covering  to  the  beds  was  a  sheet  and  a  light 
counterpane,  and  the  most  prominent  object  on 
the  table  was  a  large  carafe  of  porous  earthenware, 
beaded  with  moisture,  which  diffused  an  atmos- 
phere of  coolness  throughout  the  room.  It  is 


THE   HEAT  251 

amusing  to  recall  how  quickly  our  resolution  not 
to  drink  water  in  Spain  broke  down.  Disregard- 
ing the  awful  experience  of  an  artist  friend  of  ours, 
whose  whole  class  of  pupils  took  typhoid  from 
polluted  water  in  Granada  a  year  or  two  earlier, 
with  the  death  of  one  and  the  madness  of  another, 
we  drank  greedily,  and  for  the  next  hour  or  so 
bared  ourselves  to  the  stone  floor  and  talked, 
touched,  tasted,  and  thought  nothing  but  water. 
It  was  only  by  a  fortunate  accident  that,  when 
well  advanced  in  the  removal  of  our  clothes,  we 
discovered  that  our  window  faced  across  the  well, 
at  a  dozen  feet,  the  open  window  of  a  room  in 
which  a  very  quiet  and  sober  family  were  assembled. 
A  friend  of  ours  lived  somewhere  in  Madrid,  so 
we  braved  the  sun  to  visit  the  British  Consulate, 
where  we  hoped  to  get  his  address.  We  had 
some  difficulty  in  finding  the  Consulate,  which 
has  changed  quarters  since  the  1901  edition  of 
Baedeker  with  which  we  were  provided,  but  finally 
got  upon  the  track  of  it  in  the  pleasant  north- 
eastern suburb.  It  was  here  that  we  achieved 
what,  as  Englishmen  who  wished  to  pass  without 
notice  in  a  foreign  country,  we  could  not  help 
regarding  as  a  great  "  score."  We  were  just  about 
to  enter  the  building  when  a  tall  and  obviously 
English  gentleman  in  a  flannel  suit  and  straw  hat 
came  out.  At  sight  of  us  he  stopped,  with  a 
puzzled  expression,  and  spoke  to  us  rather  sharply 
in  Spanish.  When  we  answered  him  in  our  own 
language  he  smiled  broadly  and  said : 


252  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

"  I  thought  you  were  Basques,  and  wondered 
what  on  earth  you  were  doing  at  the  Consulate." 

He  was  connected  with  the  Embassy,  he  said, 
and  at  once  put  us  in  the  way  of  getting  the  infor- 
mation we  needed,  inviting  us  to  make  use  of  the 
telephone  and,  as  a  last  word,  warning  us  against 
the  sun  and  giving  us  some  friendly  advice  in  the 
matter  of  clothing,  which  we  had  afterwards  good 
reason  to  remember,  though  the  scantiness  of  our 
luggage  did  not  allow  us  to  take  advantage  of  it. 
The  officials  at  the  Consulate,  who  seemed  to  think 
us  remarkably  enterprising  in  travelling  third-class 

in  Spain,  were  acquainted  with  our  friend  C 

and  gave  us  his  address. 

Though  evidently  planned  in  imitation  of  the 
part  of  Paris  which  surrounds  the  Place  de  FEtoile, 
this  north-eastern  residential  quarter  of  Madrid 
seems  to  be  achieving  a  character  of  its  own  with 
the  charm  which  always  rewards  the  frank  recog- 
nition of  practical  needs  and  local  peculiarities  of 
climate  and  situation.  You  are  reminded  of  Paris, 
but  you  would  never  for  a  moment  imagine  that 
you  were  in  Paris,  and  the  chief  reason,  I  think,  is 
that  here  human  comfort  rather  than  effect  has 
been  aimed  at.  It  is  or  at  any  rate  looks  more 
practical  than  Paris.  The  handsome  red  and  white 
houses  are  admirably  adapted  to  the  extremes  of 
heat  and  cold  which  mark  the  climate  of  Madrid, 
and  the  wide  streets  and  squares  are  well  planted 
with  trees.  Everything  seems  to  be  arranged  for 
the  enjoyment  of  outdoor  life  when  it  is  possible, 


MODERN   ARCHITECTURE         253 

and  for  a  comfortable  retreat  when  it  is  not.  As 
an  illustration  of  modern  domestic  architecture 
on  a  large  scale,  I  should  think  this  part  of  Madrid 
must  be  unique  in  Europe,  the  newer  parts  of 
most  cities  being  more  gradually  evolved  from 
the  old. 

The  focus  of  the  quarter  is  the  circular  Plaza 
de  la  Independencia  which,  with  its  massive  white 
gateway,  the  old  Puerta  de  Alcala,  still  bearing 
traces  of  the  French  bombardment  in  1808,  may 
be  said  to  represent  the  Place  de  1'Etoile  in  Paris. 
On  the  south-east  of  the  Plaza,  which  is  prettily 
decorated  with  flower-beds  and  palm  trees,  is 
the  principal  entrance  to  the  Retiro  park.  We 
returned  to  the  Puerta  del  Sol  by  the  Calle  de 
Alcala,  the  widest  street  in  the  city  and  a  favourite 
route  for  public  processions,  which  seems  to  carry 
the  brightness  of  the  residential  quarter  into  the 
heart  of  old  Madrid.  The  Ministerio  de  Guerra, 
a  most  peaceful-looking  and  attractive  building 
with  a  beautiful  garden,  stands  at  the  corner  where 
the  Calle  de  Alcala  is  intersected  by  the  main  line 
of  boulevards.  Madrid  is  the  only  city  I  know 
where  the  new  is  emphatically  an  improvement  on 
the  old,  which  has  merely  the  dulness  without  the 
beauty  or  the  dignity  of  age. 

In  our  anxiety  to  see  the  pictures  in  the  Prado 
Museum  we  disregarded  the  friendly  counsel  of  the 
gentleman  from  the  Embassy  and  foolishly  set  out 
directly  after  lunch.  The  heat  of  the  sun  was 
terrible ;  we  walked  slowly,  even  to  speak  or  to 


254  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

turn  the  head  seemed  an  immense  effort,  and 
when  we  emerged  from  the  deserted  Carrara  de 
San  Jerdnimo  we  hesitated  before  the  wide  open 
space  of  the  Plaza  de  las  Cortes  as  if  it  had  been 
the  fire  zone  of  a  battle-field.  We  crossed  over  to 
the  Paseo  in  a  series  of  zig-zags,  taking  "  cover"  in 
the  thin,  circular  shade  of  every  acacia  tree,  and 
when  we  reached  the  Museum  we  found  it  closed. 
Why,  I  don't  know;  it  certainly  wasn't  raining, 
and  allowing  for  that  possibility,  Baedeker  says  the 
Museum  is  open  daily  from  ten  to  four,  except  on 
Sundays  and  festivals,  when  it  closes  at  one.  This 
was  a  Saturday.  Assuming  that  it  was  a  festival, 
it  was  perhaps  as  well  that  we  did  not  know  the 
name  of  the  saint.  We  did  not  trust  ourselves 
to  speak,  but  turned  instinctively  to  plunge  into 
the  thick  shade  of  the  Botanical  Garden.  It  was 
closed  until  four  o'clock. 

Then  James  said  a  few  words  which  made  the 
men  lying  on  the  walks  of  the  Paseo  with  their 
heads  on  the  grass  stir  uneasily  and  cross  them- 
selves. I  was  beyond  connected  speech,  and  could 
only  murmur  faintly,  "  Buen  Retiro."  Under  that 
sky  of  brass  the  trees  of  the  Paseo  gave  but  a 
mockery  of  shade.  Walking  in  single  file,  at  a 
dozen  paces  apart,  to  avoid  the  irritation  of  human 
contact,  we  climbed  the  hill  of  burning  marl  which 
is  called,  I  believe,  the  Calle  de  Alberto  Bosch.  I 
could  hear  James  repeating,  "  Ponds  and  fountains, 
ponds  and  fountains,"  like  one  babbling  in  de- 
lirium. We  reached  the  entrance  to  the  Retiro  to 


"ALGUNA   COS  A   FRESCA"        255 

find  the  whole  park  occupied  by  an  Exposition  of 
Industries.  The  very  title,  with  its  suggestion  of 
turning  wheels  and  the  smell  of  lubricating  oil,  was 
a  piece  of  wanton  cruelty.  A  smiling  official  in  a 
white  linen  suit  came  forward  and  waved  tickets 
of  admission  at  us.  I  don't  know  what  we  said, 
but  I  am  persuaded  that  we  only  confirmed  the 
Continental  opinion  of  the  manners  of  travelling 
Englishmen.  I  have  a  picture  of  a  dazed  official 
in  a  white  linen  suit,  with  a  smile  dead  on  his  lips, 
biting  the  corner  of  a  blue  ticket  of  admission  to  a 
blazing  Exposition  of  Industries. 

We  crawled  downhill  again  and  fell  into  a  tram- 
car.  It  put  us  out  on  the  south  and  shadier  side 
of  the  Puerta  del  Sol,  but  the  farthest  from  our 
hotel.  It  was  a  physical  impossibility  to  cross  the 
Puerta,  and  like  creatures  of  the  ooze  backing  from 
the  light,  we  retreated  along  the  Calle  de  Carretas 
beside  the  Home  Office  and  drifted  into  a  cafe.  I 
found  myself  murmuring  to  the  waiter,  "  Alguna 
cosa  fresca"  It  was  not  idiomatic  Spanish,  but 
he  understood.  He  stood  for  a  moment  with  his 
finger  to  the  side  of  his  nose  and  then  said,  with 
conviction,  "Helados  f  "  He  brought  us  two  lemon 
ices  with  quilled  azucarillos  and  two  tumblers  of 
water.  Probably  we  could  not  have  chosen  any- 
thing worse,  but  we  were  beyond  discretion,  and 
for  a  time,  at  any  rate,  we  enjoyed  the  illusion  of 
relief.  The  cool,  dark  interior  of  this  cafe,  which 
was  near  the  post-office,  reminded  us  of  the  old- 
fashioned  eating-houses  in  the  City  of  London, 


256  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

and  the  few  men  seated  at  the  tables  looked  like 
business  men  stealing  an  hour  from  their  desks. 
Occasionally  a  boy  strolled  in  to  try,  without 
success,  to  sell  lottery  tickets,  or  to  beg  the  little 
photographs  of  Goya  etchings  which  are  given 
away  in  boxes  of  wax  matches.  When  we  felt 
able  to  move  again  we  left  the  cafe,  and,  after 
hesitating  like  timid  bathers  on  the  shadowed  edge 
of  the  sun-flooded  Puerta,  crossed  over,  and,  with 
belated  wisdom,  went  to  our  room,  took  off  the 
greater  part  of  our  clothes,  and  lay  down  on  our 
beds. 

I  awoke  suddenly  to  find  the  room  strangely 
dark,  and  switching  on  the  electric  light,  looked 
at  my  watch.  It  was  a  quarter  to  eight.  We 
had  slept  for  nearly  four  hours.  From  the  window 
of  the  dining-room  the  Puerta  presented  an  extra- 
ordinary spectacle.  During  our  belated  siesta 
Madrid  had  waked  up,  and  it  looked  as  if  an 
invading  army  had  poured  into  the  city.  The 
Puerta,  still  golden  on  the  one  side  from  the 
low  sun,  was  black  with  people,  among  whom 
the  trams  moved  slowly  with  a  clanging  of  bells 
which  came  faintly  up  to  the  window.  Nobody 
seemed  to  be  about  any  business  or  even  to  move 
with  intention.  They  wandered  in  every  direction 
as  if  they  had  only  just  arrived  and  had  not  yet 
decided  where  they  wanted  to  go  or  what  to  do. 
I  have  never  seen  a  spectacle  so  aptly  suggestive 
of  the  "  crawling  hive." 

After  dinner  we  went  to  a  cafe  in  the  Carrera  de 


:  ".  ', 


,,    , » •J«  •    > , 


MADRID   AT   NIGHT 


257 


San  Jeronimo.  Owing  I  suppose  to  the  compara- 
tive narrowness  of  the  pavements  in  the  Puerta, 
one  misses  from  the  centre  of  Madrid  the  outside 
cafe-life  which  is  such  a  characteristic  feature  of 
Paris.  The  cafe's  themselves  lose  in  colour  and 
interest  from  the  absence  of  women.  The  small 
number  of  people  at  the  tables  puzzled  us  at  first ; 
it  was  as  if  all  Madrid  had  disappeared  again  in  the 
interval  of  dinner,  but  when  we  walked  eastward 
into  the  Salon  del  Prado  we  understood  the  reason. 
By  night  all  Madrid  comes  to  life  and  pours  out 
into  the  line  of  boulevards  which  extends  from  the 
Prado  northward  to  the  Hipodromo.  Here  we 
found  great  crowds  of  people  of  every  class,  and 
every  provision  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  evening 
promenade ;  an  American  circus,  open-air  bars 
and  cafe's,  a  kinematograph  and  music.  An  extra- 
ordinary number  and  variety  of  cooling  drinks  were 
advertised  on  the  outside  of  the  cafes ;  English 
beer,  iced  vermouth,  sarsaparilla,  orgeat,  and 
American  cocktails.  The  want  of  unanimity  in 
spelling  this  last  word  was  amusing;  one  saw 
"Kok-tails,"  "  Kock -tails,"  "  Cok-tails,"  and,  with 
triumphant  originality,  "  Koki-Koki."  Hot  milk 
punch  was  quite  a  popular  drink.  The  night 
was  still  very  hot,  and  the  obsession  of  sunlight 
remained  so  strong  that  I  found  myself  wincing 
whenever  we  passed  under  the  arc  lamps.  The 
shadows  of  the  pine  and  acacia  trees  on  the  pave- 
ment, blue  and  luminous  and  relieved  in  different 
planes,  were  most  beautiful. 
17 


258  A    SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

For  all  the  numbers  of  people,  the  life  and 
movement  and  the  provision  for  amusement,  there 
was  wanting  the  gaiety  of  Paris.  The  world  of 
Madrid  seems  to  take  its  pleasures  in  a  sort  of 
cynical  desperation.  Not  only  between  one  class 
and  another,  but  between  different  members  of 
the  same  class,  there  was  a  remarkable  absence  of 
the  air  of  good-fellowship.  Apparently  there  was 
nothing  to  bind  the  people  together  but  a  com- 
munity of  tastes ;  they  walked,  they  listened  to 
music,  they  drank  together,  but  they  remained  a 
collection  of  units.  Very  noticeable,  too,  was  the 
absence  of  coquetry  in  the  women.  Among  those 
who  might  be  assumed  to  be  "  respectable  "  there 
was  a  curious  indifference  to  the  regard  and  com- 
ments of  men,  while  the  obvious  demi-mondaines 
were  without  any  of  the  little  graces  which  in 
other  cities  women  of  the  same  class  at  any  rate 
assume  to  relieve  the  matter-of-fact  commercialism 
of  their  metier.  Here  they  walked  up  and  down, 
or  more  often  sat  on  a  seat,  waiting  with  an  air 
of  bored  indifference.  In  most  cases  they  were 
accompanied  by  an  elderly  duena  who  seemed 
much  more  alive  to  opportunities  than  them- 
selves. 

That  night  we  paid  the  penalty  of  our  rash 
excursion  into  the  midday  sun.  That  we  should 
not  sleep  soundly  after  our  late  siesta,  though  we 
had  been  travelling  all  the  previous  night,  was 
hardly  surprising,  but  what  broken  rest  we  had 
resolved  itself  into  a  succession  of  terrible  night- 


NIGHTMARES  259 

mares,  dominated  by  the  obsession  of  the  sun, 
mocked  by  the  sight  and  sound  of  running  water. 
One  of  my  dreams  was  interesting  for  its  apparent 
anticipation  of  a  visual  impression  which  I  had  not 
yet  received.  I  dreamt  that  we  were  in  England, 
though  still  in  Spain,  at  a  picnic  attended  by 
several  people  I  knew  intimately.  The  scene  of 
the  picnic  was  an  extraordinarily  faithful  anticipa- 
tion of  the  gorge  of  the  Tagus  as  seen  from  the 
old  Moorish  walls  above  the  Alcantara  bridge  at 
Toledo.  We  were  playing  a  game  of  twirling 
buckets,  so  that  they  flew  several  hundred  yards 
like  quoits,  and  fell,  still  spinning,  into  the  middle 
of  the  river.  James  made  a  bad  shot  and  his 
bucket  fell  under  the  nearer  bank.  A  locomotive 
engine  broke  from  its  moorings,  and  plunging  into 
the  river  sailed  grandly  across,  to  come  into  colli- 
sion with  a  high  brick  wall  which  crumbled  slowly 
before  it.  Confusion  fell  upon  the  picnic,  and  then 
James,  who  was  in  his  shirt  sleeves,  took  out  his 
watch,  and  looking  up  with  a  comical  expression 
of  mock  terror,  said,  "  How  long  does  it  take  to 
walk  to  Truro  ? " 

I  awoke  laughing  hysterically  but  feeling  very 
ill,  with  a  pressure  on  the  top  of  my  head  and  a 
throbbing  in  my  ears.  James  was  asleep,  but 
crying  out  in  a  strangled  voice.  I  was  so  scared 
that  I  woke  him,  and  we  arranged  what  to  do  in 
case  either  of  us  was  taken  seriously  ill.  For  the 
rest  of  the  night  we  hardly  slept.  Down  in  the 
well  some  domestic  operations  were  still  going  on, 


260 


A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 


with  the  clanking  of  a  bucket  which  probably 
influenced  my  dream.  A  woman  sang  snatches 
of  song  to  a  little  child  who  talked  in  the  quick, 
sharp  tones  of  fever,  and  then  moaned  fretfully, 
because  of  the  heat. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

TERROR   OF  THE    SUN THE   BOTANICAL    GARDEN THE 

PRADO      MUSEUM VELAZQUEZ GOYA TITIAN GENERAL 

CHARACTER    OF    SPANISH    PAINTING WHY  WE    DID   NOT   GO 

TO       THE        BULL-FIGHT "  TOREROS  " THE      ANDALUSIAN 

GIPSY THE  HOUSE  OF   THE   BOMB THE    ROYAL   PALACE 

THE   PLAZA  MAYOR AUTOS-DA-F1^ THE  RASTRO MADRID 

AFTER  MIDNIGHT THE  MUSEUM  OF  MODERN  ART 

V\7E  had  learned  our  lesson  so  thoroughly  that 
the  next  morning  we  had  to  screw  up  our 
courage  to  leave  the  cool  shelter  of  our  room. 
We  knew  now  something  of  the  terrible  reality 
under  the  jaunty  phrase,  "  a  touch  of  the  sun." 
The  physical  discomfort  was  nothing  to  the  feeling 
of  terror  produced  ;  for  several  days  I  found  myself 
guarding  not  only  my  movements  but  my  thoughts, 
for  the  simplest  idea  was  like  a  material  substance 
in  a  bruised  brain,  and  I  involuntarily  carried  my 
head  level  to  prevent  the  cargo  shifting.  It  was 
not  so  much  the  heat  we  dreaded  as  the  sun,  and 
even  at  this  distance  of  time  exposure  to  a  bright 
light,  whether  natural  or  artificial,  brings  on  a  mild 
recurrence  of  my  terrors. 

James  being  a  man  of  resolution  went  to  mass 
at  the  cathedral,  but  my  one  anxiety  was  to  get 

261 


262  A    SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

to  the  Prado  Museum,  while  the  day  was  yet  young 
and  comparatively  cool.  To  my  great  joy  the 
Botanical  Garden  was  open,  and  I  spent  a  very 
pleasant  hour  there  waiting  for  James.  A  school 
of  girls  in  grey  print  dresses,  the  younger  with 
black  straw  hats,  the  elder  with  lace  mantillas, 
amused  themselves  decorously  under  the  care  of 
nuns.  The  garden  contains  a  good  collection  of 
different  varieties  of  acacia,  plane,  elm,  and  other 
trees.  Even  at  that  hour  of  the  morning  the  sun 
was  very  powerful,  and  in  a  photograph  which  I 
took  of  the  long  avenue  the  contrasts  of  light  and 
shade  are  so  violent  that  it  looks  like  a  snow 
scene. 

For  us,  as  for  most  visitors  to  Madrid,  the  Prado 
Museum  meant  Velazquez,  and  on  entering  we 
made  our  way  at  once  to  the  Salon  containing  his 
principal  works.  I  think  we  both  had  the  grace  to 
recognise  at  once,  despairingly,  that  in  order  to 
look  at  Velazquez  in  Madrid  he  must  be  made  the 
object  of  a  special  journey.  You  can't  take  him 
in  your  stride.  We  could  give  at  most  a  couple  of 
mornings  to  the  task  of  a  fortnight,  and  in  any 
case  a  book  of  miscellaneous  impressions  is  not  the 
place  for  any  but  a  passing  reference  to  a  subject 
which  could  only  be  treated  properly  in  a  whole 
volume  by  a  person  specially  qualified  for  the 
purpose. 

What  that  qualification  must  be  was  made 
very  clear  to  me  when  I  found  myself  in  front  of 
"The  Surrender  of  Breda,"  which  has  been  called 


THE   PRADO   MUSEUM  268 

the  greatest  historical  picture  in  the  world.  My 
first  thought  was  that  no  painter  loses  more  than 
Velazquez  in  reproduction.  I  had  seen  many 
reproductions  of  "  Las  Lanzas  "  ("  The  Lances  "), 
as  it  is  lovingly  called,  in  colour  and  in  black  and 
white,  but  none  of  them  had  in  the  least  prepared 
me  for  the  original  picture.  At  the  same  time  I 
remembered  that  my  first  impression  on  seeing  the 
works  of  Millet  in  the  Louvre  was  one  of  slight 
disappointment.  They  were  so  little  better  than 
their  reproductions  with  which  I  was  familiar. 
The  reason  for  these  two  exactly  opposite  ex- 
periences, which  must  have  occurred  to  innumer- 
able people,  is  not,  I  think,  merely  that  Velazquez 
was  a  greater  artist  than  Millet,  but  that  he  was 
more  specifically  a  painter.  In  spite  of  their 
universal  appeal  of  effective  composition,  truth  to 
nature  and  that  nobility  of  temper  which  is  so  well 
illustrated  by  the  compassionate  courtesy  of  the 
victor  in  "  The  Surrender,"  so  that,  as  James  said, 
"  any  fool  can  see  they  are  great  pictures,"  the 
pictures  of  Velazquez  are  finally  painter's  pictures 
in  a  sense  in  which  the  works  of  artists  equally 
great  are  not.  The  qualities  which  give  Velazquez 
his  unique  position  as  an  artist  are  precisely  those 
qualities  which  only  a  painter  can  properly  ap- 
preciate, and  they  are  the  first  to  disappear  in 
any  process  of  reproduction.  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
colour ;  greater  colourists  than  Velazquez  lose  less 
— even  when  translated  into  black  and  white.  It  is 
a  matter,  finally,  of  painting ;  of  the  management 


264  A    SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

of  tones,  of  the  actual  use  of  paint  in  representing 
objects  on  a  flat  surface.  So  far  attainting  in  this 
sense  is  concerned,  that  one  room  in  tim  Prado 
Museum  may  be  said  to  cover  the  whole  Jfbject ; 
in  painting  qua  painting  nothing  greateV,  if  so 
great,  has  been  done.  It  is  well  to  remember, 
however,  that  without  detraction  from  the  great- 
ness of  Velazquez,  there  is  a  consideration  of  art, 
equally  concerned  with  the  reproduction  of  objects 
on  a  flat  surface  by  means  of  pigment,  that  he 
leaves  absolutely  untouched. 

Velazquez  has  lately  become  so  much  "the 
fashion  "  that  this  distinction  is  in  danger  of  being 
overlooked.  People  will  speak  of  Velazquez  and, 
say,  Leonardo  da  Vinci  in  the  same  breath, 
without  remembering  that  they  were  not  even 
trying  to  do  the  same  thing.  There  is  no  common 
standard  by  which  their  works  can  be  judged. 
The  obvious  differences  in  their  pictures  are  not 
due  to  different  degrees  of  ability.  Nor  are  they 
due  to  differences  of  method  as  depending  on 
period.  If  the  two  painters  had  been  contemporary 
and  neighbours,  their  pictures  would  have  been 
fundamentally  unlike.  To  compare  Velazquez  and 
Leonardo  is  like — as  somebody  said  of  another 
matter — comparing  "four  pounds  of  butter  with 
four  o'clock."  They  cannot  be  discussed  in  com- 
mon terms. 

The  fundamental  difference  between  them  will 
become  clearer,  I  think,  if  one  remembers  the 
old  division  of  all  mankind  into  Platonists  and 


VELAZQUEZ  265 

Aristotelians.  This  division  holds  good  of  artists  ; 
there  are,  al|^P  have  been,  and  always  will  be 
paintersAwhose  concern  is  primarily  with  ideas, 
and  p«ters  whose  concern  is  primarily  with 
appearances.  Both  Platonist  and  Aristotelian 
painters  are  concerned  with  ideas,  and  both  are 
concerned  with  appearances,  but  one  paints  ap- 
pearances to  express  his  ideas,  and  the  other  gets 
his  ideas  from  painting  appearances.  This  funda- 
mental difference  of  attitude  to  art  is  not  neces- 
sarily expressed  in  a  choice  of  subject.  If  it 
were,  the  difference  in  aim  would  always  be 
obvious,  and  we  should  not  hear  people  saying, 
"  Velazquez  was  a  greater,  or  a  lesser,  artist  than 
Leonardo  or  Titian."  The  painter  of  ideas,  the 
Platonist  in  painting,  is  not  necessarily  a  painter 
of  "  stories "  or  of  "  allegories."  He  may  be  a 
painter  of  portraits. 

Anybody  can  see  that  Botticelli  and  Velazquez 
—to  take  extreme  examples  of  the  Platonist  and 
the  Artistotelian  in  painting — are  not  comparable. 
They  cannot  be  judged  by  the  same  standard. 
The  non-comparability  of  Leonardo  and  Velazquez 
is  not  quite  so  obvious  ;  that  of  Titian  and  Velaz- 
quez is  a  great  deal  less.  Yet  they  are  fundamen- 
tally unlike,  even  though  it  is  said  that  Velazquez 
was  influenced  by  Titian.  What  Velazquez  learned 
from  Titian  was  purely  technical,  as  Mr.  Sargent 
may  quite  conceivably  have  "  taken  tips "  from 
Burne-  Jones.  Nobody,  however,  would  even 
begin  to  judge  the  works  of  these  two  modern 


266 


A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 


painters  by  the  same  standard.  The  fundamental 
difference  between  Velazquez  and  Titian  comes 
out  when  both  painted  the  same  subject.  Velaz- 
quez painted  a  beautiful  nude  model,  and  called 
her  "Venus."  Titian  painted  his  idea  of  Venus, 
and  used  a  beautiful  nude  model  for  its  expression. 
Both  in  a  sense  painted  a  "  portrait "  of  a  young 
woman,  both  used  paint  and  canvas,  and  there 
the  resemblance  ends. 

It  is  this  exclusive  concern  of  Velazquez  with 
painting  rather  than  with  the  expression  of  ideas 
in  paint,  which  makes  him  lose  so  much  in  re- 
production. A  photograph  of  a  Titian  Venus, 
allowing  for  the  absence  of  colour,  gives  you  a 
very  good  notion  of  the  original  picture,  but  a 
photograph  of  the  Venus  of  Velazquez,  apart  from 
colour,  is  little  better  than  a  photograph  of  the 
actual  model  as  she  posed  for  him,  because  the 
quality  of  painting  which  makes  the  Rokeby 
Venus  a  great  work  of  art,  is  almost  entirely  lost 
in  a  photograph. 

The  dependence  of  Velazquez  upon  actual 
workmanship,  too,  makes  him  very  difficult  to 
"write  about."  A  painter  writing  for  painters 
could  say  a  great  deal  about  the  pictures  in  the 
Salon  of  Velazquez ;  a  layman  writing  for  laymen, 
beyond  "  describing  "  their  subjects,  can  say  very 
little  more  than  that  they  are  great  works  of  art. 
As  we  moved  from  one  picture  to  another,  from 
"  The  Surrender "  to  the  glowing  and  energetic 
"Las  Hilanderas"  or  "The  Tapestry  Weavers," 


VELAZQUEZ  267 

and  from  that  to  the  extraordinarily  modern-look- 
ing paintings  of  the  Villa  Medici  gardens,  I  felt 
more  and  more  strongly  how  nearly  impossible 
it  was  to  say  anything  about  them,  even  suppos- 
ing I  was  competent,  except  in  technical  language. 
I  don't  mean  that  the  layman  is  unable  to  appreci- 
ate their  power  and  beauty.  That  he  is  not  was 
illustrated  in  a  remarkable  manner  almost  under 
my  nose.  I  had  gone  into  the  small  room  which 
contains  "  Las  Meninas,"  leaving  James  before 
the  picture,  so  full  of  a  pagan  joy  in  life,  which 
is  called  "Los  Borrachos"  or  "The  Topers." 
There  were  not  more  than  three  other  people  in 
the  Salon.  Presently  James  joined  me,  looking 
sheepish,  amused,  and  pleased  all  at  once.  I  asked 
him  what  had  happened,  and  he  told  me  that 
while  he  was  looking  at  the  picture  a  poorly 
dressed  man,  who  might  have  been  the  original 
of  one  of  the  figures,  came  and  stood  beside  him. 
They  tried  to  express  to  each  other  their  delight 
in  the  painting  with  words  and  gestures,  and 
finally,  as  if  in  despair  of  other  expression,  the 
man  flung  himself  upon  James  and  embraced 
him.  I  don't  think  that  any  painter  need  desire 
a  finer  compliment. 

Certainly  no  picture  is  exhibited  under  happier 
or  more  honourable  conditions  than  the  master- 
piece of  Velazquez  representing  a  momentary 
incident  in  the  life  of  the  royal  family,  which  is 
known  as  "  Las  Meninas."  The  picture  practi- 
cally forms  the  fourth  wall  of  the  small,  soberly- 


268 


A    SPANISH   HOLIDAY 


hung  room  in  which  it  is  placed,  so  that  you  feel 
as  if  you  stood  in  the  foreground  of  the  palace 
interior  which  is  represented.  You  stand,  in  fact, 
where  stood  the  king  and  queen,  whose  placidly 
watching  faces  are  reflected  in  the  painted  mirror 
at  the  back  of  the  picture.  The  painting  itself  is 
faced  on  the  opposite  wall  by  an  actual  mirror, 
in  which  it  is  reflected  with  an  astonishing  illusion 
of  reality.  After  a  time  the  feeling  of  being  in 
the  picture  is  quite  uncanny ;  there  is  nothing  in 
the  room  to  disturb  the  impression,  and  then  you 
begin  to  recognise  what  in  studying  the  figures 
of  the  little  princess  and  her  attendants  you  might 
otherwise  have  overlooked,  that  the  chief  triumph 
of  the  picture  is  in  its  rendering  of  air  and  space. 
Velazquez  may  be  said  to  have  destroyed  the 
reality  of  the  canvas  on  which  he  painted ;  you 
look  not  at  a  picture  but  into  a  room. 

I  suppose  the  Salon  of  Velazquez  is  the  most 
fully  representative  collection  of  the  works  of  a 
single  painter  in  Europe.  There  are  good  ex- 
amples of  Velazquez  in  other  galleries,  in  our 
own  National  Gallery  for  example,  but  every 
phase  of  his  work  may  be  studied  in  proper 
sequence  at  the  Prado.  When  we  left  the  room 
I  felt  rather  like  a  plumber  who  has  been  "  to 
look  at  his  job/'  and  then  gone  away  again  with- 
out touching  it.  I  had  learnt  what  was  there, 
the  importance  of  the  job,  and  that  was  all. 
Wishing  to  make  the  most  of  our  opportunities 
by  confining  our  attention  as  far  as  possible  to 


GOYA  269 

special  features,  we  merely  skimmed  the  Long 
Gallery,  and  found  our  way  to  the  Salon  of  Goya 
on  the  ground  floor.  We  noticed,  by  the  way, 
that  as  a  place  for  the  exhibition  of  pictures  the 
inside  of  the  Prado  Museum  does  not  fulfil  the 
promise  of  the  outside.  With  the  exception  of 
the  Salon  of  Velazquez,  it  is  not  well  lighted. 

Goya  was  for  us  a  new  experience  in  painting. 
His  work  has  been  described  as  a  protest  against 
everything  that  had  been  painted  before,  and 
that  seems  to  me  true.  The  only  preceding 
painter  to  whom  he  bears  the  slightest  resemblance 
is,  oddly  enough,  Gainsborough — particularly  in 
the  portrait  group  of  the  Osuna  family — but  the 
influences  which  led  up  to  Gainsborough  were 
entirely  wanting  in  the  case  of  Goya.  In  relation 
to  the  art  of  his  time  and  country  he  was  without 
parentage.  On  the  other  hand  he  might  fairly 
be  called  the  father  of  impressionism,  at  any  rate 
in  figure  painting,  and  he  was  evidently  a  powerful 
influence  upon  Manet.  Most  of  Goya's  work 
gives  you  the  impression  that  it  was  painted  at  a 
sitting,  as  if  he  felt  that  a  picture  which  could  not 
be  finished  in  a  day,  and  a  single  mood,  ought 
not  to  be  attempted.  His  pictures,  particularly 
the  designs  for  tapestry  of  rustic  fetes,  have  an 
extraordinary  vitality  and  spontaneity,  as  if  their 
swiftness  of  execution  were  only  the  result  of 
long  thought  and  patient  observation  beforehand, 
so  that  he  came  to  his  work  knowing  exactly  what 
to  do.  They  are  a  sort  of  shorthand  of  painting. 


270  A    SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

Goya's  own  often-quoted  saying,  "  Painting  con- 
sists of  sacrifices,"  might  be  taken  to  mean  not 
only  the  necessity  for  leaving  out  of  a  picture 
everything  that  does  not  matter,  but  that  still 
harder  necessity  for  waiting  until  the  impulse  is 
so  strong  and  so  complete,  the  subject  so  clearly 
"  seen,"  that  the  work  can  be  finished  at  a  blow. 
You  feel  that  at  intervals  in  a  very  full  and  varied 
life,  apparently  forgetful  of  art,  he  picked  up  his 
brushes  and  dashed  off  a  picture  at  white  heat ; 
but  this  very  character  of  improvisation  implies 
that  the  "  fundamental  brain  work "  was  done 
before  he  touched  the  canvas.  His  work  shows 
a  remarkable  intensity  and  wide  range  of  moods, 
from  the  black  and  bloody  "  Dos  de  Mayo  "  re- 
cording the  massacre  which  took  place  a  few 
hundred  yards  from  the  Museum  in  1808,  more 
horrible  for  its  bad  lighting,  to  the  pure  gaiety  of 
"  Blind  Man's  Buff."  More  than  any  painter  he 
seems  to  me  to  reflect  the  life  of  the  country  to 
which  he  belonged  ;  he  is  more  peculiarly  Spanish 
even  than  Velazquez.  Besides  the  paintings  of 
Goya,  the  Salon  contains  a  large  and  interesting 
collection  of  his  drawings  and  etchings. 

We  had  come  prepared  to  see  famous  pictures 
by  Spanish  painters,  but  as  we  had  not  studied 
the  catalogue  beforehand  we  had  no  notion  of  the 
other  treasures  in  the  Museum,  and  so  our  further 
exploration  was  full  of  pleasant  discoveries  of 
Fra  Angelico  and  Mantegna  and  Memling  and 
Van  der  Weyden.  Almost  at  the  last  moment 


TITIAN  271 

we  remembered  to  have  heard  that  there  were 
some  fine  Titians  in  the  Prado.  A  hurried  ex- 
amination of  the  Long  Gallery  and  the  Rotunda 
showed  us  nothing  by  Titian,  and  we  were  on 
the  point  of  giving  up  the  search  when  James 
caught  sight  of  a  direction  at  the  foot  of  a  stair- 
case. We  ascended  and  so,  almost  by  accident, 
came  to  the  small  upper  rooms  which  contain  the 
pictures  of  the  Venetian  school ;  the  "  Madonna 
with  St.  Anthony "  of  Giorgione,  and  the  "  Bac- 
chanal," the  "  Fecundity,"  and  other  works  of 
Titian. 

In  the  presence  of  these  glowing  canvases, 
with  their  haunting  effect  of  a  meaning  behind 
the  actual  scenes,  it  was  impossible  not  to  recog- 
nise that  they  represented  not  merely  a  different 
"  school "  or  "  style  "  of  painting,  or  a  greater  or 
lesser  degree  of  technical  skill,  or  a  different  tem- 
perament, but  an  entirely  different  art  from  that 
of  Velazquez.  To  take  an  illustration  from  the 
art  of  writing,  the  difference  between  the  art  of 
Titian  and  that  of  Velazquez  is  like  the  difference 
between  the  use  of  words  as  symbols  of  ideas 
and  the  use  of  words  merely  for  their  dictionary 
meanings.  For  want  of  a  better  definition  I  am 
compelled  to  call  it  the  difference  between  Pla- 
tonism  and  Aristotelianism.  On  a  frankly  super- 
ficial acquaintance  with  Spanish  painting,  I  am 
struck  by  the  almost  entire  absence  from  it  of 
what  may  be  called  the  Platonic  spirit.  From 
the  Spanish  painters  of  the  fifteenth  century 


272  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

down  to  those  of  the  present  day,  it  is  all  sheer 
painting.  The  single  exception  is  Goya,  and  even 
his  idealism  is  mainly  destructive  ;  it  is  an  ideal- 
ism turned  inside  out,  as  it  were.  In  spite  of  their 
differences,  Ribera,  Zurbaran,  Velazquez,  Murillo, 
and  even  the  modern  painters  Zuloaga  and  Gan- 
dara  can  all  be  compared  by  the  same  standard, 
discussed  in  the  same  terms.  There  is  no  common 
standard  of  comparison  between  Velazquez  and 
I  Leonardo,  or  Velazquez  and  Titian,  or — to  take 
modern  examples  —  between  Mr.  Sargent  and 
Burne-Jones,  or  Bonnat  and  Puvis  de  Chavannes. 

This  absence  of  the  Platonic  spirit  from 
Spanish  painting  would  not  be  so  remarkable  if 
the  Spaniards  as  a  race  were  not  full  of  it.  "  Don 
Quixote"  and  the  writings  of  Saint  Teresa  are 
typical  expressions  of  the  Platonic  spirit  in  imagi- 
native literature  and  theology.  The  only  con- 
clusion one  can  arrive  at  is  that  though  Spain  has 
produced  great  painters  qua  painters,  including 
perhaps  the  very  greatest,  she  has  not  expressed 
herself  so  characteristically  in  painting  as  she  has 
in  literature. 

Later  in  the  afternoon  we  called  upon  C — 
at  his  flat  near  the  Plaza  de  la  Independencia. 
We  had  thus  an  opportunity  of  seeing  the  in- 
terior of  a  modern  Spanish  house  and  were  struck 
by  its  comfort  and  convenience.  The  building 
was  provided  with  a  lift,  and  the  problem  caused 
by  the  extremes  of  climate  in  Madrid  seemed  to 
have  been  solved  satisfactorily.  C took  us 


BULL-FIGHTING 


273 


to  an  open-air  cafe  in  the  Paseo  de  Recole- 
tos,  where  we  sat  sipping  vermouth  and  watching 
the  people  coming  back  from  the  bull-fight ;  the 
matadores  in  carriages,  as  became  the  heroes 
of  the  occasion,  and  the  picadores  on  horse- 
back. 

I  am  afraid  that  the  distinction  of  having  been 
to  Spain  without  seeing  a  bull-fight  is  in  my  case 
purely  accidental.  James  said  from  the  first  that, 
as  a  matter  of  principle,  he  would  not  attend  a 
Corrida,  but  I  fully  intended  to  do  so.  On  this, 
the  only  good  opportunity,  however,  I  felt  so 
unwell  from  my  exposure  to  the  sun  the  day 
before  that  I  frankly  "  funked "  it.  I  wish  now 
that  I  had  been  more  resolute,  because  the  bull- 
fight is  a  unique  opportunity  for  seeing  the 
Spanish  people  en  fete.  With  regard  to  the  actual 
sport  of  bull-fighting  I  believe  it  is  impossible  for 
a  stranger  to  form  any  idea  of  what  it  means, 
and  so  he  is  naturally  impressed  most  of  all  by 
the  accompanying  cruelty.  Bull-fighting  is  cruel, 
but  it  is  only  more  cruel  than  fox-hunting  or 
coursing,  in  that  bulls  and  horses  are  bigger 
animals,  and  the  latter  more  sentimentally  dear 
to  ourselves,  than  foxes  and  hares.  The  other 
objection  to  bull-fighting  that  it  is  demoralising 
to  the  spectators  is  no  doubt  in  a  measure  true, 
but  it  cannot  be  much  more  demoralising  than 
the  average  musical  comedy. 

The  important  thing  to  remember  is,  that  bull- 
fighting is  not  a  mere  torturing  and  killing  of  bulls 
18 


274  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

and  horses,  but  a  game  of  science  and  skill,  with  a 
ritual  so  elaborate  that  a  stranger  may  be  pardoned 
for  seeing  nothing  but  the  accidents.  The  intelli- 
gent Spaniard  may  enjoy  the  cruelty,  but  he  goes 

to   see   the   game.     C 's   experience   is  worth 

quoting.  Physically  and  mentally  he  is  a  man  of 
a  rather  sensitive  type,  and  the  first  time  he  went 
to  a  bull-fight  he  was  so  disgusted  by  the  cruelty 
that  he  had  to  come  away  before  it  was  over.  He 
made  up  his  mind  that  he  would  not  go  again,  but 
after  a  time  was  persuaded  to  do  so.  He  went 
again  and  again,  and  as  he  began  to  understand 
the  subtleties  of  the  game  and  to  look  out  for 
points  of  skill,  he  ceased  to  notice  the  cruelty.  It 
was  not  that  he  became  hardened  to  it,  but  that 
his  attention  was  otherwise  engaged.  Only  now, 
after  innumerable  visits  to  the  Corrida,  is  he  able  to 
appreciate  the  refinements  of  technique,  to  see 
when  a  bull  is  well  or  badly  killed. 

C did  not  pretend  that  bull-fighting  is  not 

a  cruel  sport,  but  said  that  when  you  add  to  skill 
the  necessity  for  a  high  degree  of  courage  in  those 
who  take  part  in  it,  the  accompanying  cruelty  is 
not  so  prominent  as  it  appears  to  the  shocked 
senses  of  a  stranger,  who  sees  only  a  rough-and- 
tumble  butchery  of  bulls  and  horses.  We  gathered 

from  what  C said  that  the  worst  feature  of' 

bull-fighting,  as  of  so  many  other  sports,  is  the 
vicious  circle  of  hangers-on.  The  term  chulos 
covers,  besides  the  genuine  bull-fighters,  a  large 
number  of  men  who  have  perhaps  only  once  assisted 


"  TOREROS  "  275 

at  a  Corrida  in  a  minor  capacity.  They  are  gener- 
ally the  lowest  characters  in  the  city,  idle  and 
boastful,  the  associates  of  "  confidence  men,"  and 
often  living  on  the  wages  of  prostitutes.  We  saw 
several  of  these  evil-looking  creatures  hanging 
about  the  cafes.  They  make  a  great  point  of 
assuming  the  correct  details  of  the  genuine  torero's 
appearance — the  closely-cropped  head,  with  one 
lock  twisted  up  to  show  a  little  bare  patch  at  the 
poll  just  below  the  brim  of  the  wide  felt  hat. 

With  the  return  of  the  people  from  the  bull- 
fight the  Paseo  quickly  became  crowded.  Every 
class  was  represented,  from  Parisian-f rocked  ladies 
and  English-tailored  young  dandies  to  men  and 
women  of  the  working  classes  with  their  families. 
Red — a  beautiful  faded  red — and  yellow  was  a 
favourite  combination  of  colour  in  the  dresses  of 
the  poorer  people,  forming  an  admirable  foil  to  a 
dark  complexion.  The  water- sellers  wandered  up 
and  down  with  their  shrill  cries  of  "  Quien  quiere 
agua!  A-gua  fresca  ! "  and  the  cafes  did  a  brisk 
trade  in  vermouth  and  cocktails.  An  Andalusian 
gipsy,  a  very  old  woman  with  bright  eyes  and  a 
cunning  brown  face,  carrying  a  water-jar  poised  on 
her  hip,  wanted  to  tell  our  fortunes ;  from  James's 
right  eye,  she  said,  it  was  evident  that  he  was  soon 
to  receive  a  large  fortune  ;  while  his  left,  alas  !  told 
her  that  there  was  a  woman  sorrowing  for  him. 

C dined  with  us  at  our  hotel,  and  after- 
wards we  sat  for  half-an-hour  in  a  cafe  on  the  south 
side  of  the  Puerta.  It  was  here  that  we  learnt  the 


276  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

origin  of  a  graceful  custom.  C —  -  told  us  that 
the  glass  of  water  given  with  coffee  is  a  present 
from  the  waiter  in  acknowledgment  beforehand  of 
his  "  tip."  Formerly  he  gave  a  small  glass  of 
cognac,  but  the  raising  of  the  alcohol  duties  put 
that  beyond  his  means. 

We  spent  the  rest  of  the  evening  wandering 

about  the  streets  of  the  city.  C has  lived  in 

Madrid  for  several  years  and  has  made  a  special 
study  of  its  historical  associations,  so  that  he  had  a 
story  to  tell  us  of  every  important  building,  public 
or  private,  which  he  pointed  out.  Most  of  the 
stories  were  of  the  kind  which  are  called  scanda- 
lous, thus  confirming  our  instinctive  impression 
that,  at  any  rate  in  the  past,  the  atmosphere  of 
Madrid  society  was  that  of  rather  sordid  intrigue. 

But  C gave  us  interesting  sidelights  on  matters 

of  history.  He  was  in  Madrid  at  the  time  of  the 
royal  marriage,  and  as  we  passed  the  "  House  of 
the  Bomb  "  in  the  Calle  Mayor  he  told  us  a  dozen 
little  intimate  details  of  a  kind  which  does  not  get 
into  the  papers,  gathered  from  actors  in  and  spec- 
tators of  the  tragedy.  The  dull  ordinariness  of 
the  street,  looking  so  little  like  the  scene  of  any- 
thing connected  with  royalty,  gave  point  to  his 
anecdotes.  Occasionally  we  turned  off  to  the  right 
or  left  to  look  at  some  building  interesting  for  its 
associations.  In  a  dark  and  narrow  street  beside 
the  Ayuntamiento  a  lover  clung  to  the  bars  of  a 
window  whispering  to  a  girl  within. 

We  came  out  upon  the  great  square  before  the 


THE   ROYAL   PALACE  277 

royal  palace.  It  was  as  if  we  had  come  to  the 
edge  of  the  world.  We  looked  out  upon  a  black 
gulf,  swept  by  a  cool  wind,  in  which  a  few  lights 
twinkled  like  stars.  Inside  the  railings  which 
enclose  the  huge  dim-lit  courtyard  of  the  palace  a 
soldier  on  guard  moved  slowly  to  and  fro.  The  wide 
gravelled  space  outside  the  railings  was  searched 
from  corner  to  corner  by  the  glare  of  arc  lamps  as 
if  to  betray  the  approach  of  a  possible  enemy.  As 
we  stood  there  the  soldier  in  the  courtyard  changed 
his  beat  and  came  and  peered  at  us  through  the 
bars.  The  dazzling  light  showed  up  every  inequa- 
lity in  the  ground,  and  I  noticed  as  an  example 
of  the  national  carelessness  of  detail,  even  in  the 
precincts  of  a  royal  residence,  that  a  lid  of  a  man- 
hole in  front  of  the  gates  was  broken  and  awry. 
The  end  of  a  building  in  sight  of  the  palace  windows 
was  disfigured  by  a  sprawling  advertisement  of 
beer.  This  end  of  the  city  was  strangely  silent 
and  deserted.  The  king  and  the  royal  family  are, 
I  believe,  popular  in  Madrid,  as  throughout  Spain ; 
but  the  effect  of  the  barrack  of  a  palace  by  night 
was  that  of  a  heartless  isolation. 

We  retraced  our  steps  and  turned  into  the 
Plaza  Mayor,  once  the  social  centre  of  Madrid  and 
the  scene  of  royal  bull-fights  and  of  autos-da-fe  at 
the  time  of  the  Inquisition.  The  balconies  of  the 
grim  and  solid-looking  houses  were  fitted  up  as 
boxes  for  the  spectators,  amongst  whom  Charles  I. 
of  England  was  once  present  at  a  bull-fight.  Now 
many  of  the  houses  are  turned  into  shops,  and  the 


278  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

square  is  laid  out  as  a  pleasure-garden ;  but  the 
place  still  retains  a  look  of  sinister  grandeur,  as 
if  the  buildings  were  indelibly  stained  with  old 
crimes. 

From  here  we  passed  down  the  Calle  de  Toledo 
into  the  Rastro,  a  notable  thieves'  quarter,  and  one 
of  the  largest  "rag-fairs"  in  the  world.  At  this 
hour  of  night  it  was  quiet  and  comparatively  de- 
serted, but  the  squalid  houses  and  the  aspect  of 
the  men  lying  full  length  on  the  pavement  gave 
us  a  good  idea  of  its  character.  One  felt  that  it 
was  well  to  avoid  stumbling  over  those  alfresco 

sleepers.  C advised  us  to  come  to  the  Rastro 

in  the  morning,  when  the  market  would  be  in  full 
swing,  though  not  so  full  as  on  Sunday.  Not  only 
the  general  scene,  but  the  stalls  of  the  dealers  in 
second-hand  books  and  bric-a-brac  were  worth 
inspection.  Sometimes  there  were  good  bargains 
to  be  made,  if  one  did  not  inquire  too  closely  into 
the  history  of  the  article,  for  anything  stolen  in 
Madrid  soon  finds  its  way  into  the  Rastro.  The 
lower  end  of  the  irregular  Plaza  was  in  darkness, 

and  C thought  that  it  would  not  be  discreet 

to  walk  any  farther  in  that  direction  at  so  late 
an  hour. 

We  returned  to  the  Puerta  del  Sol  and  followed 
the  Calle  de  Alcala,  where  crowds  of  people  ex- 
plained the  deserted  look  of  the  western  quarter  of 
the  city.  The  more  fashionable  folk  had  appar- 
ently retired  for  the  night,  but  I  was  again  struck 
by  the  hardness  and  lack  of  amenity  between  one 


MADRID   AFTER   MIDNIGHT      279 

person  and  another  among  those  that  remained. 
They  gave  the  impression  of  being  less  out  for 
enjoyment  than  because  it  was  impossible  to  find 
rest  or  comfort  within  doors.  The  hard  glare  of 
the  electric  light  gave  the  effect  of  a  nightmare 
noon,  and  the  flitting  of  innumerable  bats  added  to 
the  weirdness  of  the  scene.  Thirst  was  a  problem, 
and  revolting  from  alcohol,  we  found  intense  but 
fugitive  relief  in  some  decoction  of  oranges  sucked 
through  a  straw.  I  remember  drinking  three  tall 
tumblerfuls  on  end.  It  was  half-past  one  before 
we  returned  to  our  hotel,  and  still  the  Calle  de 
Alcala  was  thronged  with  people  moving  irritably 
in  an  infernal  mockery  of  noonday. 

We  walked  through  the  Rastro  on  the  fol- 
lowing morning,  and  found  it  a  larger  and  more 
picturesque  "  Petticoat  Lane."  A  great  number 
of  the  stalls  contained  the  merest  rubbish,  second- 
hand clothing  of  all  kinds,  broken  furniture,  and 
the  apparently  useless  scrap-iron  which  forms  the 
principal  stock-in-trade  of  the  marine  store-dealer. 
Here  and  there,  however,  were  some  interesting 
pieces  of  old  metal- work,  copper  vessels  of  all 
shapes  and  sizes,  and  beautiful  four-spouted  lamps 
of  brass.  The  lower,  enclosed  portion  of  the 
market,  which  is  called,  I  believe,  the  Cerrillo  del 
Rastro,  contained  nothing  but  articles  of  metal, 
including  some  good  specimens  of  wrought  iron. 
We  felt  that  our  knowledge  of  the  language  was 
too  slight  to  enable  us  to  bargain  successfully  with 
the  sullen-looking  owners  of  the  stalls,  and  our  few 


280  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

experimental  attempts  were  met  by  extravagant 
demands.  A  couple  of  Civil  Guards,  looking  very 
large  and  clean,  patrolled  the  market.  Apparently 
the  Rastro  is  the  sink  of  Madrid,  a  concentration 
camp  of  shady  characters  watched  over  by  the 
authorities,  but  not  interfered  with  so  long  as  they 
keep  to  their  own  quarters,  and  do  not  commit 
any  crime  which  must  be  officially  noticed.  We 
made  our  way  southward  through  a  dirty  quarter, 
and  came  out  upon  the  Ronda  de  Embaj  adores, 
near  the  National  Tobacco  Factory. 

We  had  intended  to  spend  part  of  the  morning 
at  the  Royal  Armoury — the  finest  in  Europe — but 
on  reference  to  Baedeker  we  found  that  though 
the  hours  of  admission  are  from  ten  to  twelve, 
tickets  must  be  obtained  on  the  afternoon  of  the 
day  before.  This  regulation  was  so  perfectly  in 
keeping  with  the  character  of  Madrid  as  a  place 
remarkable  for  the  number  of  things  you  can't  or 
mustn't  do,  that  we  felt  only  mildly  disappointed. 
We  took  tram  from  the  Embajadores,  and  spent 
the  rest  of  the  morning  in  the  Prado  Museum. 

After  lunch  we  met  C by  appointment  to  see 

the  modern  pictures  in  the  Palacio  de  la  Nacional  y 
Museo  de  Arte  Moderno  Biblioteca  in  the  Paseo 

de  Recoletos.  The  building  was  closed,  but  C 

overcame  the  difficulty  with  two  pesetas  and  a 
little  conversation  with  the  caretaker.  I  confess 
that  I  have  but  the  haziest  recollection  of  the  con- 
tents of  the  Museo  de  Arte  Moderno.  My  general 
impression  is  of  an  estimable  preoccupation  with 


MODERN   ART  281 

native  scenes  and  subjects,  faithful  representations 
of  historical  incidents  and  "  anecdote "  pictures. 
I  do  not  remember  having  seen  a  single  picture 
which  might  not  have  been  painted  by  an  English- 
man or  a  Frenchman,  and  indeed  I  have  seen  more 
interesting  examples  of  modern  Spanish  painting 
in  London  and  Paris. 


CHAPTER  XV 


FIRST    VIEW    OF     TOLEDO THE     TAGUS THE     CENTRE 

OF  SPAIN TOLEDO  CATHEDRAL SWORDS YOUNG  TOR- 
MENTORS  EL  CRISTO  DE  LA  LUZ THE  PUERTA  DEL  SOL— 

THE  WOMEN  OF  TOLEDO MILITARY  CADETS THE  MOZARABIC 

MASS SANTO  TOM^   AND  SAN    JUAN    DE    LOS    REYES THE 

TREASURES     OF     THE    CATHEDRAL THE     PUENTE     DE     SAN 

MARTIN THE  VIRGIN  OF  CARMEN 

TT^ARLY  in  the  morning  we  took  tram  from  the 
-*-^  Carrera  de  San  Jeronimo  to  the  station  of 
Mediodia  for  Toledo.  We  nearly  missed  our  train, 
for  the  Calle  Alfonso  XII.  was  "up,"  and  as  we 
were  descending  the  hill  in  sight  of  the  station  a 
heavy  cart  crossing  the  road  got  stuck  in  a  trench, 
and  one  of  the  team  of  six  mules  harnessed  in 
single  file  fell  down  upon  the  tram  lines  ahead. 
We  were  struck  by  the  want  of  intelligence  shown 
by  the  men  in  charge,  for  instead  of  unhitching 
the  mules,  when  they  could  have  backed  the  cart 
easily,  they  tried  to  flog  them  forward,  dragging 
their  fallen  comrade.  After  watching  this  sense- 
less performance  for  three  minutes  we  got  out  and 
ran,  and  reached  the  station  just  in  time  to  take 
our  tickets. 

The  immediate  environs  of  Madrid  to  the  south 

282 


TOLEDO  283 

are  new  and  ugly  and  dominated  by  gasworks,  but 
the  city  builds  up  well  from  this  point  in  a  distant 
view.  We  were  soon  out  in  the  typical  Castilian 
country  of  corn,  corn,  corn,  very  pale  under  the 
brilliant  sunlight,  so  that  the  cloudless  blue  sky 
looked  dark  by  contrast.  Only  a  few  olive  trees 
and  vines  broke  the  monotony  of  the  surface. 
Scarlet  poppies  and  blue  chicory  made  a  continu- 
ous belt  of  clean  colour  beside  the  line.  Out  in 
the  plain  oxen  harnessed  to  some  heavy  implement 
moved  round  in  a  circle,  treading  out  the  corn,  and 
at  intervals  a  great  heap  of  grain  showed  the  result 
of  their  labours.  One  might  suppose  that  Castile 
furnished  the  bread  of  all  the  world.  At  Algodor 
we  were  in  a  granite  country,  and  thereafter  fol- 
lowed the  Tagus,  with  a  narrow  fertile  belt  and 
poplar  trees  on  either  side. 

The  station  of  Toledo,  which  is  some  little  dis- 
tance from  the  city,  is  infested  by  would-be  guides, 
and  in  fighting  our  way  through  them  to  the  hotel 
omnibus  we  could  not  look  round,  so  that  our  first 
view  of  the  "  Spanish  Rome "  came  suddenly  at 
the  end  of  an  avenue  of  poplars.  We  knew  then 
that  we  had  kept  the  best  until  the  last.  From 
a  distance  Toledo  is  like  the  magic  city  of  a 
child's  imagination  ;  it  has  an  indescribable  effect 
of  sudden  completeness,  and  one  finds  difficulty  in 
believing  that  it  was  built  by  man.  Even  on  a 
nearer  approach  it  looks  less  built  than  hewn  out 
of  the  rock  rising  sheer  from  a  horseshoe  bend  of 
the  Tagus.  If  a  sculptor  had  to  make  a  symbolical 


284  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

figure  of  Toledo  he  might  carve  a  woman  with  a 
stern,  eager  profile,  fine-drawn,  level  brows  and 
proud  lips,  half  emerged  from  a  rock,  bending  a 
little  forward,  with  her  right  hand  resting  on  the 
hilt  of  a  sword. 

Swinging  round  a  curve  at  the  end  of  the  avenue 
we  came  to  the  two- towered  Alcantara  bridge,  of 
Moorish  origin,  the  only  approach  to  the  city  on  the 
eastern  side.  From  the  bridge  we  had  a  splendid 
view  of  the  gorge  of  the  Tagus  and  the  city  piling 
up  to  the  square  mass  of  the  Alcazar.  The  char- 
acter of  the  rocky  ravine  which  makes  Toledo 
impregnable  on  three  sides  is  well  described  by  the 
name  of  the  river  which  flows  through  it,  Tajo 
(a  cut  or  incision).  Even  here,  nearly  three  hun- 
dred miles  from  the  sea,  the  Tagus  is  a  respectable 
river  of  dark  water  with  a  sullen  flow  that  gives 
the  impression  of  tremendous  power. 

We  crossed  the  bridge  and  began  a  spiral  ascent 
which  reminded  me  of  pictures  of  the  Tower  of 
Babel.  Before  us  to  the  left  was  the  Moorish 
Puerta  del  Sol,  and  to  the  right  the  Church  of 
Santiago  and  the  Hospital  of  San  Juan  Bautista, 
in  the  milder  suburb  where  the  horseshoe  mass  of 
rock  on  which  the  city  is  built  declines  northward 
into  the  plain  of  Castile.  Just  below  the  Puerta 
del  Sol  we  turned  sharply  to  the  left  and,  entering 
the  city,  crossed  the  busy  Plaza  de  Zocodover  and 
so  came  to  the  pleasant  little  Fonda  del  Lino  in 
the  Calle  de  la  Plata. 

Towns  and  cities  may  be  roughly  divided  into 


THE   PUERTA   DEL  SOL:  TOLEDO 


THE    CENTRE    OF   SPAIN          285 

those  in  which  the  houses  are  built  beside  the 
streets  and  those  in  which  the  streets  are  bored 
through  the  houses.  It  is  evident,  even  in  a 
journey  from  the  station,  that  Toledo  belongs  to 
the  latter  class.  It  may  be  described  as  a  dense 
mass  of  brown  buildings  on  a  brown  rock,  pene- 
trated at  random  by  narrow,  irregular  streets,  or 
wynds,  as  they  would  be  called  in  Edinburgh.  I 
doubt  if  there  is  a  straight  run  of  a  hundred  yards 
in  the  whole  city. 

We  rested  for  half-an-hour  in  the  little  cool 
sitting-room  of  the  Fonda,  where  there  were  copies 
of  Mehalah  and  of  London  Opinion.  Already  we 
had  the  strange  feeling  of  having  arrived  at  our 
destination,  as  if  Toledo  had  been  the  object  of  our 
journey  from  England  and  everything  else  that  we 
had  seen  in  Spain  but  incidents  by  the  way.  I 
cannot  explain  this  feeling,  which  only  deepened 
with  every  hour  of  our  visit.  In  this  little  brown 
city  of  some  twenty  thousand  inhabitants,  measur- 
ing less  than  a  mile  each  way,  we  found  the 
centrality  we  had  missed  from  Madrid.  We  had 
reached  a  point  of  rest,  not  only  the  geographical 
but  the  spiritual  centre  of  Spain.  All  Spain 
hummed  and  revolved  round  us.  We  had  as  if 
cut  through  concentric  rings  of  life  to  find  the 
heart  of  it.  We  had  not  seen,  we  were  not  to  see, 
many  famous  places ;  Cordova,  Seville,  Granada, 
Barcelona,  each  of  them  had  a  special  character, 
the  note  of  a  special  Spain,  but  we  had  the  convic- 
tion, no  doubt  illusory,  that  they  all  lacked  some- 


286  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

thing  of  the  essential  Spain  in  proportion  as  they 
were  nearer  to  or  farther  from  the   character  of 
Toledo.     As  in  our  approach  from  the  relatively 
un-Spanish  provinces  of  the  North  we  had  grown, 
as  children  would  say,  "  hotter "  in  our  quest  of 
the  essential  Spain,  so,  if  we  journeyed  southward 
to  the  Mediterranean  border,  to  that  side  of  Spain 
which  is  turned  to  the  sun,  we  should  be  growing 
"colder."     Seville  might  be  more  full  of  colour, 
Cordova  and  Granada  more  typically  Moorish,  and 
Barcelona  more  exuberant  than  Toledo,  but  they 
would  be  relatively  un-Spanish    if  only  by  their 
intensity   of  local   characteristics.     They,   as  the 
cities  of  the  North,  represented  particular  Spains. ; 
As  in  Borrow's  time  the  elements  of  these  par-, 
ticular  Spains  are  to  be  found  in  Madrid,  but  in 
that  city   without  a  co-ordinating   principle  they 
remain  distinct  and  recognisable  from  each  other. 
In  Toledo  they  are  fused  together  into  something 
which,  while  partaking  of  the  characters  of  thei 
all  in  general,  is  like  none  of  them  in  particular, 
and  may  fairly  be  called  the  character  of  Spain. 

As  if  the  illusion  of  all  Spain  revolving 
round  Toledo  were  supported  by  an  actual 
movement  of  the  earth,  the  cathedral,  which  is 
the  centre  of  Toledo,  which  is  the  centre  of 
Spain,  lies  in  a  little  depression  —  in  the  funnel 
of  the  vortex.  The  site  of  the  cathedral  is  thus 
exactly  the  reverse  of  that  of  Burgos,  and  as  it 
even  more  closely  pressed  upon  by  houses,  th< 
building  is  even  less  visible  as  a  whole  from  an; 


TOLEDO   CATHEDRAL  287 

quarter.  But  you  do  not  feel  that  it  has  the  same 
need  as  Burgos  to  evade  a  leisurely  examination. 
There  is  nothing  here  to  excite  the  emotions  at 
the  expense  of  the  judgment ;  no  lantern  with 
its  disastrous  suggestion  of  a  bride-cake  :  and  the 
general  character  of  so  much  of  the  exterior  as  can 
be  seen  is  that  of  a  grave  simplicity.  The  propor- 
tions are  so  good  that  you  do  not  even  recognise 
that  it  is  a  very  large  building,  a  hundred  feet 
longer  than  Burgos.  I  suppose  that  Toledo  Cathe- 
dral cannot  be  called  a  typically  Spanish  building, 
but  in  so  far  as  it  is,  it  reflects  the  virtues  without 
the  defects  of  the  Spanish  character.  The  ele- 
ments of  brutality  and  over-exuberance  which  run 
riot  over  Burgos  are  entirely  absent  from  Toledo. 
You  do  not  feel,  either,  that  Toledo  requires  for 
comprehension  the  idea  of  a  building  in  process  of 
becoming;  it  is  manifestly  finished, complete  in  three 
dimensions.  As  an  expression  of  religious  emotion, 
though  full  of  praise,  it  has  passed  the  stage  of 
Te  Deum  and  reached  that  of  Nunc  Dimittis. 

We  entered  by  the  Puerta  del  Reloj,  so  named 
from  the  clock  above  it  in  the  north  transept,  which 
is  only  nominally  a  transept,  and  does  not  project 
beyond  the  outer  aisle  of  the  nave.  The  effect  of 
the  interior  was  immediate  and  identical  upon  both 
of  us,  crudely  expressed,  by  which  I  don't  remem- 
ber, if  it  was  not  by  both  together,  in  the  words, 
"  It  almost  makes  you  cry."  Moved  by  the  same 
impulse,  we  walked  the  length  of  the  building  over 
the  chequered  pavement  of  black  and  white  marble 


288  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

and  sat  down  on  the  broad  shallow  steps  at  the 
foot  of  the  great  western  doors.  Perhaps  the 
difference  in  the  effect  of  the  interiors  of  Burgos 
and  Toledo  cathedrals  might  be  summed  up  by 
saying  that  in  one  you  want  to  walk  about  and  in 
the  other  you  want  to  sit  down. 

In  Toledo  the  choir  and  the  capilla  mayor  take 
up  a  much  smaller  proportion  of  the  nave  than  at 
Burgos,  and  they  are  not  joined  together  by  screens, 
while  the  chapels  form  a  mere  shallow  margin  to 
the  outer  aisles.  Consequently  you  have  the  whole 
interior  under  the  eye  at  once,  and  nothing  in- 
trudes upon  or  takes  from  the  impression  of  unity. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  interior  that  one  would 
wish  away  except  some  appalling  sculptures  aptly 
called  by  Ford  "  a  fricassee  of  marble  "  at  the  back 
of  the  high  altar,  which  are  fortunately  invisible 
from  the  nave.  Whereas  the  feeling  of  restlessness 
induced  by  the  interior  of  Burgos  impels  you  to 
set  off  at  once  on  an  exploration  of  the  chapels — I 
as  if,  despairing  of  a  single  impression  of  the  whole, 
you  hoped  to  build  one  up  synthetically  by  an 
examination  of  its  parts,  to  find  the  cathedral  in 
its  chapels,  so  to  speak — the  immediate  satisfaction 
of  the  senses  by  the  interior  of  Toledo  enables  you 
to  leave  the  chapels  to  be  seen  at  leisure.  The 
chapels  indeed,  though,  as  we  were  afterwards  to 
find,  beautiful  and  interesting,  are  so  little  in  evi- 
dence that  on  a  first  visit,  to  judge  by  our  experi- 
ence, you  forget  all  about  them.  Perhaps  it  is  for 
this  reason  that  I  find  myself  thinking  of  Toledo 


TOLEDO   CATHEDRAL  289 

as  a  great  church  rather  than  as  a  cathedral.  To 
my  mind  the  former  word  lies  closer  to  the  idea 
of  religion  which  Toledo  expresses  than  the  latter, 
which  seems  to  imply  a  certain  worldliness,  a  sug- 
gestion of  temporal  power  and  richness.  Toledo 
Cathedral,  for  all  its  treasures,  is  significant  of 
religion  stripped  to  the  bare  bones.  It  is  a  monu- 
ment of  sheer  faith  ;  stern  and  even  a  little  defiant, 
as  if  surrounded  by  enemies.  One  might  without 
extravagance  believe  it  to  be  the  last  stronghold 
of  the  Christian  religion  in  the  world.  If  it  is  in 
the  city  of  Toledo  that  one  finds  the  ultimate  ex- 
pression of  Spain,  it  is  in  Toledo  Cathedral  that  one 
finds  the  last  word  of  religion  which,  under  what- 
ever disguises,  is  the  ultimate  residue  of  the  Spanish 
character. 

For  all  its  effect  of  space  and  dignity  and  stern 
insistence  upon  faith,  Toledo  Cathedral  is  one  of 
the  friendliest  buildings  I  have  ever  been  in.  It 
is  as  homely  as  a  little  moorland  church  in  Corn- 
wall. We  sat  for  a  long  time  on  the  western  steps 
which,  running  the  whole  width  of  the  nave,  are 
as  if  made  for  the  descent  of  an  army — the  building 
somehow  gains  in  finality  from  its  floor  being  below 
the  level  of  the  street — unwilling  to  disturb  our 
first  impression  of  the  wonderful  interior.  Probably 
by  reason  of  the  hour,  about  noon,  we  were  left 
undisturbed  by  any  sacristan  wishing  us  to  look 
at  the  individual  treasures  under  his  charge.  At 
intervals  a  woman  would  come  in  swiftly  and 
silently  by  one  of  the  smaller  doors  and  fling  her- 


290  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

self  on  her  knees  before  an  altar  with  passionate 
abandon  ;  otherwise  we  had  the  building  to  our- 
selves. When  at  last  we  moved,  we  were  disin-; 
clined  even  to  take  advantage  of  this  comparative 
solitude  to  look  at  anything  in  detail,  feeling  that 
it  was  better  to  carry  our  impressions  of  the  whole 
unbroken  into  the  open  air. 

The  confession  of  Street,  the  architect,  quoted 
by  Baedeker,  that  he  could  not  find  his  way  about 
Toledo  without  a   guide   put   us   on  our   mettle. 
Perhaps  we  were  aided  by  our  apprenticeship  to 
the   labyrinthine  ways  of  Cornish  fishing  towns,! 
but  with  the  help  of  a  compass,  we  had  little  diffi- 
culty in  making  ourselves  familiar  with  the  general 
plan  of  the  city.     We  walked  completely  round  il 
and  pierced  it  through  in  several  directions,  con- 
tenting ourselves  for  this  afternoon  with  the  ou1 
sides  of  the  buildings  we  hoped  to  visit  on  tl 
morrow.     Most  of  the  streets  are  too  narrow  fc 
wheeled  traffic,  and  so  Toledo  is  strangely  quiet, 
as  if  it  were  actually  the  sleeping  centre  of  Spain. 

Yet  this  very  quiet  gives  you  the  impression 
of  a  place  where  people  are  busily  engaged  upoi 
some  private  occupation  which  they  have  carri< 
on  for  a  very  long  time.  Toledo  still  keeps  up  th< 
making  of  swords  for  which  it  is  famous :  there  ij 
a  Government  Arms  Factory  a  little  way 
the  Tagus,  and  there  are  many  shops  for  the  sale 
of  knives,  scissors,  and  other  articles  of  damascene 
steel.  In  a  narrow  street  near  the  cathedral  w< 
came  upon  a  smithy  where  lean,  brown  men  wei 


YOUNG   TORMENTORS  291 

making  a  great  iron  cage  for  hanging  a  church  bell. 
They  called  us  into  the  yard  and  pointed  to  a  filled- 
in  Moorish  arch  in  the  brickwork  over  the  forge  as 
if  they  were  proud  of  the  antiquity  of  their  craft. 
The  bell  itself,  they  said,  was  founded  somewhere 
in  the  north,  I  think  at  Logrono.  Unlike  Burgos, 
which  is  middle-aged,  Toledo  is  a  very  old  city — 
I  don't  mean  from  the  length  of  time  it  has  been 
in  existence,  but  in  character.  You  feel  that  it 
was  always  old,  or  that  it  became  suddenly  old 
upon  some  crisis,  and  that  it  will  not  become 
appreciably  older  for  many  centuries.  There  are 
traces  of  every  period  in  the  buildings,  but  the 
predominating  character  is  Moorish.  Most  of  the 
houses  turn  their  backs  to  the  street ;  the  few, 
small  windows  are  heavily  barred,  and  massive 
iron-bound  gates  protect  the  entrances.  Only  here 
and  there  you  get  a  glimpse  into  a  central  patio 
bright  with  flowers  in  poignant  contrast  to  the 
universal  dusty  brown  of  the  surrounding  walls. 

After  two  or  three  hours'  wandering  at  random 
among  these  fascinating  streets  we  came  out  past 
the  ugly  new  Diputacion  upon  the  crumbling 
northern  walls  above  the  suburb  of  Santiago  where 
there  is  a  very  old  church  with  a  beautiful  Moorish 
tower.  As  we  stood  refreshing  our  eyes  upon  the 
trees  in  the  wide  plain  below,  we  were  assailed  by 
a  crowd  of  little  boys  who  took  us  to  be  French- 
men and  danced  round  us  with  mocking  cries  of 
"Mon  petit  chouf"  and,  why  I  don't  know,  un- 
less they  thought  we  were  strolling  musicians, 


292  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

imitations  of  playing  the  tin  whistle.  They  were 
led  by  a  handsome  young  imp  of  about  eleven 
whom  we  were  to  see  again  in  a  very  different 
character.  A  Ye  shook  them  off  with  difficulty 
and  presently  found  ourselves  by  the  little  ruined 
church,  once  a  mosque,  of  El  Cristo  de  la  Luz. 
Although  we  had  intended  to  leave  the  examina- 
tion of  interiors  until  the  next  day,  the  late  after- 
noon seemed  somehow  a  fitting  time  to  visit  this 
pathetic  survival  of  two  faiths.  It  seemed  proper, 
too,  that  the  caretaker  should  be  a  woman  with 
the  sweet  gravity  of  manner  which  is  characteristic 
of  the  women  of  Toledo.  She  lived,  apparently 
with  her  mother,  in  a  cottage  with  a  lovely  garden 
of  carnations,  figs,  and  vines,  in  the  precincts  of  the 
church.  Having  unlocked  the  door,  she  left  us  to 
our  own  devices. 

Like  most  of  the  Moorish  remains  in  Toledo, 
El  Cristo  de  la  Luz  is  built  of  very  thin  red 
bricks,  which  with  the  light  lines  of  mortar  make 
a  beautiful  and  characteristic  wall  surface.  The 
outside  is  broken  by  two  tiers  of  blind  arches, 
the  lower  round-headed,  the  upper  many-cusped. 
According  to  a  Moorish  inscription,  the  tiny 
mosque,  only  about  twenty-one  feet  by  twenty, 
was  built  in  922  incorporating  the  remains  of  an 
earlier  Visigothic  church,  and  the  apse  was  added 
in  the  twelfth  century.  The  name,  "the  Christ 
of  the  Light,"  is  derived  from  a  legend  which  tells 
how  the  horse  of  the  Cid,  on  the  triumphal  entry  oi 
Alfonso  VI.,  fell  on  its  knees  at  the  door  of  the 


o 

Q 
O 

u 

o 

N 

X 

H 


EL   CRISTO   DE   LA   LUZ          293 

mosque  and  refused  to  move.  The  wall  being 
opened  revealed  a  niche  containing  a  crucifix  and 
a  lamp  still  burning.  So  the  first  mass  in  the 
conquered  city  was  said  in  this  building,  the  Christ 
of  the  Light.  The  interior  of  both  the  mosque 
and  the  Christian  addition  is  now  completely 
ruined ;  the  floor  is  an  uneven  mass  of  rubbish, 
and  there  is  a  ragged  hole  where  the  altar-stone 
was  torn  away.  The  Moorish  portion  is  divided 
into  nine  compartments  by  four  round  columns  of 
marble,  with  carved  capitals,  supporting  sixteen 
white  horseshoe  arches  which  intersect  above  to 
form  an  intricate  vaulting. 

From  the  caretaker  of  El  Cristo  de  la  Luz  we 
got  permission  to  ascend  the  Puerta  del  Sol.  The 
interior  is  elaborately  fortified  with  little  stairways 
and  loopholed  galleries,  all  of  narrow  brick,  and 
from  the  ramparts  of  the  towers  there  is  a  mag- 
nificent view  of  the  surrounding  country,  including 
a  bend  of  the  Tagus. 

We  spent  the  evening  in  the  Plaza  de  Zoco- 
dov£r,  which  is  the  social  centre  of  Toledo.  A  fine 
Moorish  gateway,  the  Arco  de  la  Sangre  de  Cristo, 
on  the  eastern  side,  gives  a  descending  vista  to  the 
river.  Cervantes,  who  must  have  often  walked  in 
the  Zocodover,  lived  in  a  house,  now  the  Posada 
de  la  Sangre,  immediately  below  the  gateway. 
There  are  two  or  three  cafes  in  the  Zocodover 
under  the  arcades  of  the  surrounding  houses,  and 
this  fine  warm  evening  tables  were  set  out  in  the 
Plaza  itself,  with  awnings,  and  soft  incandescent 


294  A, SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

lamps  hung  from  temporary  wires.  We  fancied 
that  the  people  of  Toledo  were  quieter  and  graver 
than  any  we  had  seen  in  Spain.  Particularly  the 
women ;  we  saw  several  very  beautij^^f aces , 
pale,  with  deep,  steady  eyes,  and  clear- cut^^J^H 
of  a  tragical  intensity.  In  appearance  and  move- 
ment the  women  suggested  an  Arab  mixture 
in  the  rac|J^  The  effect  of  them  was  well  de- 
scribed by  .\pames  when  he  said,  after  a  thoughtful 
silence : 

"  One  couldn't  flirt  with  these  women ;  it 
would  have  to  be  the  real  thing  or  nothing." 

A  curious  and  attractive  feature  of  so  old  a  city 
is  the  presence  of  a  great  many  very  young  soldiers. 
Toledo  is  a  training-place  for  military  cadets,  and 
with  their  charming  uniforms  of  grey  and  cardinal, 
and  slender,  cross-hilted  swords,  they  lend  an 
atmosphere  of  young  chivalry  to  the  place  where 
everything  else  is  old  and  a  little  tired. 

In  the  morning  we  attended  the  Mozarabic 
mass  at  the  cathedral.  This  use,  which  differs  in 
several  important  respects  from  the  Roman,  is  said 
to  be  that  of  the  primitive  church,  and  it  closely 
resembles  the  Communion  Service  of  the  English 
Prayer-Book.  The  word  Mozarabic  (  =  Muzdrabe) 
means  "  in  the  midst  of,  or  mixed  with  the  Arabs 
or  Moors."  Copies  of  the  Mozarabic  book  of 
devotion  containing  the  text  of  the  mass  in 
parallel  Spanish  and  Latin,  a  history  of  the  ritual, 
and  a  description  of  the  offices  may  be  bought  in 
the  sacristy  of  the  cathedral. 


THE   MOZARABIC   MASS 


295 


We  knelt  with  half-a-dozen  men  and  women 
in  the  entrance  to  the  Mozarabic  chapel  in  the 
south-west  corner  of  the  great  building.  Another 
mass  -m^  being  celebrated  at  the  high  altar,  with 
md  one  could  hear  the  organist  feeling  for 
tTie  Intonation  of  the  two  celebrants ;  now  sup- 
porting one  and  now  the  other,  so  that  the  two 
services  were  bound  together  in  /^garment  of 
sound  without  conflict  or  confulMi.  The  Moza- 
rabic ritual  is  very  simple  and  earnest,  and  I 
fancied  in  the  quick  responses  a  defiant  intonation, 
as  if  they  were  still  coloured  by  the  fanaticism  of 
the  Moslems.  They  sounded  like  battle-cries.  A 
noticeable  feature  was  the  response  of  "  Amen " 
to  each  petition  of  the  Paternoster.  The  deacon 
wore  a  silver  wand  depending  from  his  right  wrist, 
but  for  what  reason  I  do  not  know.  At  one  point 
in  the  service  a  choir-boy  came  to  the  door  of  the 
chapel  with  a  bundle  of  papers,  and,  beckoning  to 
the  server,  gave  them  to  him  to  place  on  the  altar. 
The  nonchalant  and  even  jaunt/  manner  of  these 
boys,  as  if  they  brought  a  number  of  letters  to  be 
stamped,  did  not  give  the  impression  of  irreverence, 
but  as  if  the  whole  business  were  so  real  and  prac- 
tical that  it  could  be  treated  light-heartedly.  Not 
for  the  first  time  I  felt  that  Spain  was  the  first 
professionally  religious  country  I  had  been  in; 
that  by  comparison  the  religion  of  other  countries 
was  the  religion  of  amateurs. 

In  order  to  see  the  treasury,  chapels,  and  other 
special  parts  of  the  cathedral  it  is  necessary  to  get 


296  A    SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

coupons  of  admission  from  the  superintendent's 
office  in  the  upper  cloisters.  We  lost  our  way 
trying  to  find  this  place  and  intruded  upon  a  scene 
from  the  Middle  Ages;  a  large  room  filled  with 
musty  volumes  of  music  where  two  priests  and  a 
layman,  I  suppose  the  choirmaster,  stood  in  en- 
thusiastic argument  over  an  immense  brown  page 
of  black-letter  notation.  The  layman,  who  was 
humming  and  beating  time,  stopped  with  uplifted 
forefinger  on  our  entrance,  and  then  directed  us  to 
the  proper  place.  Here  a  very  old  priest  sat  over 
his  desayuno  ;  he  rose  and  with  a  graceful  gesture 
of  both  hands  invited  us  to  share  his  breakfast  of 
a  tiny  cup  of  chocolate — the  size  of  an  English 
egg-cup — and  a  piece  of  bread.  From  an  adjoining 
room  a  woman  on  her  knees  peered  in  at  us 
curiously.  The  old  priest  painfully  filled  in  the 
coupons — a  green  one  giving  admission  to  the 
"  Tesoro  Mayor,  Sacristia  y  Ochavo,  Ropas  "  and 
an  orange  to  the  "  Salci  Capitular,  Coro  y  Capillas  " 
at  half-past  three  in  the  afternoon — and  when  he 
had  finished  he  dried  the  writing  with  sand. 

We  spent  the  rest  of  the  morning  looking  at 
the  churches  of  Santo  Tome  and  San  Juan  de  los 
Reyes.  The  custodian  of  both  lives  in  the  Calle 
del  Angel,  and  before  we  started  for  Santo  Tome 
the  little  fat  Sancho  Panza  of  a  man  showed  us 
his  collection  of  curiosities;  Moorish  tiles,  old 
sword  -  blades,  holy  -  water  stoups,  and  pictures. 
Santo  Tome,  originally  a  mosque,  was  rebuilt  in 
the  fourteenth  century.  The  most  interesting 


SANTO   TOME  297 

portion  is  the  tower,  an  admirable  example  of 
Moorish  work.  The  treasure  of  the  church  is  El 
Greco's  famous  picture  of  the  burial  of  Count 
Orgaz,  a  strange  piece  of  work  that  reminds  you 
a  little  of  Blake.  San  Juan  de  los  Reyes,  which 
occupies  a  commanding  position  at  the  extreme 
west  of  the  city,  overlooking  the  Tagus,  is  a  huge 
building  in  a  debased  Gothic,  which  recalls  the 
worst  features  of  Burgos  Cathedral.  Here,  as  there, 
stone  is  treated  out  of  all  regard  for  its  character, 
and  the  carving  degenerates  into  confectionery. 
The  outside  of  the  church  is  hung  with  chains  and 
fetters  struck  from  the  limbs  of  Christian  captives 
of  the  Moors.  Built  to  commemorate  a  victory, 
San  Juan  de  los  Reyes  is  a  florid  and  hysterical 
outburst  of  jubilation  quite  out  of  character  with 
the  sad,  stern  dignity  of  the  city  to  which  it 
belongs. 

When  we  presented  our  coupons  in  the  cathe- 
dral at  half-past  three  we  understood  the  reason 
for  so  much  method.  Each  portion  of  the  build- 
ing is  in  the  charge  of  a  special  sacristan.  The 
unclean  brute  who  showed  us  the  Capilla  Mayor 
with  its  fine  screen  of  gilded  iron,  huge  retablo, 
and  beautiful  triforium  of  horseshoe  arches,  spat 
on  the  marble  mosaic  pavement  in  front  of  the 
high  altar,  and  we  were  glad  to  be  handed 
over  to  a  sympathetic  old  man  who  murmured 
impressively  "  Un  tesoro  artistico"  as  he  unlocked 
the  gates  of  the  choir.  Here  as  at  Burgos  the 
exquisite  carving  of  the  double  row  of  stalls  is 


298  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

the  chief  glory.  From  a  single  visit  it  is  im- 
possible to  give  an  adequate  account  of  this 
veritable  "artistic  treasure,"  and  I  can  only 
mention  the  three  lecterns,  the  gigantic  illumi- 
nated books  of  offices,  each  worth  a  day's  ex- 
amination, and  a  very  old  figure  of  the  Virgin— 
"  Muy  antiguo"  whispered  our  guide — known  as 
the  Black  Virgin  with  the  White  Face. 

When  we  had  been  taken  round  the  chapels 
there  was  a  little  pause,  and  we  understood  that 
in  order  to  visit  the  treasury  we  must  be  ac- 
companied by  canons.  As  we  waited  under  the 
gigantic  figure  of  St.  Christopher,  a  piece  of  naive 
humour,  forty-five  feet  high,  which  is  painted 
on  the  wall  of  the  south  aisle,  there  was  a  little 
scuffle  in  the  sacristy  and  three  or  four  choir- 
boys came  scampering  out.  One  of  them,  who 
looked  somehow  familiar,  danced  up  to  us,  hold- 
ing out  his  cassock  like  a  petticoat,  and  with  a 
mischievous  gleam  of  his  dark  eyes  murmured 
under  his  breath,  "  Mon  petit  chou ! "  He  was 
the  ringleader  of  our  young  tormentors  on  the 
city  walls  the  afternoon  before.  Evidently  choir- 
boys are  the  same  all  the  world  over. 

Three  canons,  two  choir-boys,  and  a  young 
sacristan  marched  with  us  to  the  chapel  of  San 
Juan  in  the  north-west  corner  of  the  cathedral 
which  contains  the  treasury.  Each  canon  carried 
a  separate  key  which  he  used  in  turn,  and  when 
at  last  the  door  swung  open  the  reason  for  this 
precaution  was  evident.  No  single  human  being 


TREASURES  299 

would  care  to  take  the  responsibility  of  guarding 
the  portable  works  of  art  which  are  arranged 
in  glass  cases  round  the  walls  of  the  treasury. 
Putting  workmanship  on  one  side,  the  sheer  value 
of  metal  and  jewels  is  astonishing.  The  chief 
treasure  is  a  ten-foot  high  Gothic  Custodia  of 
silver — the  gold  monstrance  alone  weighs  four 
pounds — and  there  are  innumerable  reliquaries, 
censers,  crosses,  chalices,  and  other  marvels  of 
the  jeweller's  art  in  gold,  silver,  crystal,  and 
precious  stones.  The  result  of  a  visit  like  ours 
is  merely  to  be  able  to  say  that  one  has  seen 
these  things.  Dropping  a  canon  at  a  time — the 
choir-boys  were  evidently  being  taken  round  as  a 
treat — we  visited  the  Ochavo,  Vestuario,  Sacristia, 
and  Sala  Capitular,  where  there  is  some  very 
good  Moorish  plaster-work.  As  a  little  human 
touch — behind  the  door  of  a  room  leading  into 
the  sacristy  we  came  upon  a  young  priest  en- 
joying a  surreptitious  cigarette.  His  expression 
of  "  caught "  was  most  comical  to  see. 

After  all,  in  spite  of  the  bewildering  number 
and  variety  of  "treasures,"  it  is  the  effect  of 
Toledo  Cathedral  itself  that  remains  in  my  mind. 
It  is  without  exception  the  most  beautiful  and 
impressive  building  I  have  been  in.  Fortunately, 
too,  we  remained  late  enough  to  get  the  full 
effect  of  the  stained  glass  which  with  a  declining 
sun  becomes  a  perfect  blaze  of  colour. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  we  walked  westward 
through  the  city  and  crossed  the  Puente  de  San 


300 


A   SPANIS 


JDAY 


Martin.  Here  the  Tagus  emerging  from  its 
narrow  gorge  is  lined  with  pleasant  gardens 
which  only  enhance  the  barren,  dusty  look  of  the 
brown  city  on  a  brown  rock  beyond.  Beggars 
haunted  the  towers  of  the  bridge,  and  a  few 
men  were  fishing  in  the  dark  waters  of  the 
river. 

Everywhere  in  Toledo  you  are  reminded  of 
the  sword.  As  we  climbed  the  arid  slope  from 
the  Puente  de  San  Martin  to  the  church  of 
San  Juan  de  los  Reyes,  we  came  upon  an  acacia 
tree  filled  with  cicale.  Their  thin,  dry  music, 
without  visible  cause,  and  so  curiously  recalling 
the  shape  of  the  narrow  leaves  which  were  as 
motionless  as  if  they  had  been  cut  out  of  green 
steel,  sounded  like  the  clashing  of  innumerable 
tiny  blades  one  upon  another  in  a  fairy  battle. 
Crossing  the  city  we  found  the  streets  full  of 
young  military  cadets  with  their  uniforms  of 
grey  and  cardinal,  and  slender  swords  of  the 
cross-hilted  pattern  which  is  the  peculiar  emblem 
of  romantic  warfare. 

From  the  Alcazar  where  these  young  soldiers 
are  trained,  we  had  a  panorama  of  roofs  with  an 
angular  alertness  in  their  lines,  and  belfries  with 
needle-pointed  finials  etched  upon  a  sunset  sky 
deepening  without  loss  of  clearness,  as  if  clear 
wine  were  being  slowly  poured  into  clear  water. 
Not  a  curve  was  visible  anywhere  nor  anything 
green.  The  whole  character  of  the  place  was 
that  of  an  enchanted  city  of  steel,  and  as  if  to 


THE    VlKflJ    OF    CARMEN        301 

emphasise    this    effect    of    metal    a    dozen    bells 
suddenly  clanged  out  the  hour. 

We  descended  to  the  crumbling  Moorish 
ramparts  above  the  Alcantara  bridge,  the  scene 
which  my  dream  in  Madrid  had  so  curiously 
anticipated.  Twenty  or  thirty  soldiers  in  undress 
uniform  lounged  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
river  and  above  them  a  cross  stood  out  black 
against  the  sky.  A  bugle  wailed,  and  as  if  in 
answer  to  the  summons  the  small  dark  figures 
of  two  Civil  Guards,  carrying  their  rifles  at  the 
trail,  emerged  from  a  little  building  and  began 
slowly  to  climb  the  tawny,  precipitous  bank  of 
the  river. 

We  skirted  the  ramparts,  passed  through  the 
Puerta  del  Sol  and,  a  little  tired,  ascended  the 
steep  street  leading  to  the  small,  irregular  Plaza 
de  Zocodover  on  our  way  to  our  hotel.  As  we 
approached  the  Plaza  we  were  aware  of  some 
change  in  its  usual  activity.  The  cries  of  the 
dealers  in  cheap  finery  who  line  the  pavement 
were  hushed,  and  instead  there  was  a  vague 
sound  of  music.  Balconies,  which  we  had  last 
seen  bare,  were  hung  with  brightly  coloured 
stuffs,  crimson  and  purple  and  gold. 

A  dark  mass  of  people,  still  and  silent,  filled 
the  Plaza,  and  through  their  midst  advanced  a 
procession  of  girls  dressed  in  white  and  bearing 
candles.  Their  faces  shone  with  a  solemn  glad- 
ness and  they  moved,  though  soberly,  with  a 
dancing  rhythm  in  their  footsteps.  As  we  came 


302  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

nearer  we  saw  that  they  were  linked  together 
by  a  broad  white  ribbon,  which  they  held  in 
their  left  hands.  The  ribbon  was  attached  to 
the  base  of  a  statue  of  the  Virgin  and  Child 
gently  swaying  on  the  shoulders  of  four  men. 
Whatever  crudity  there  was  in  the  carving  or 
colouring  was  redeemed  by  the  blue  dusk  and 
soft  uncertain  glow  of  the  candles.  Upon  the 
base  of  the  statue  white  doves  were  sidling  and 
fluttering. 

The  pale  blue  smoke  of  incense  drifted  across 
the  yellow  flames  of  the  candles,  and  behind  the 
thurifer  came  a  band  of  young  men  with  muted 
brass  instruments  playing  the  slow,  lilting  march 
to  which  the  girls  moved  in  time.  Three  priests 
in  rich  copes  of  white  and  gold  followed,  and 
the  procession  was  closed  by  half-a-dozen  grim 
soldiers  unarmed  and  with  heads  uncovered. 

This  unexpected  vision  of  white  and  gold,  of 
girls  and  doves,  in  that  stern  and  barren  city 
had  an  extraordinarily  poignant  appeal.  I  had 
seen  processions,  religious  and  civic,  in  England, 
but  always  there  was  about  them  the  uneasiness 
of  the  conscious  amateur ;  a  hint  of  the  interest- 
ing survival  or  the  revival,  an  over-anxiety  about 
details,  or  a  simpering  conviction  that  they  were 
traditionally  "all  right."  But  here  those  who 
took  part  and  those  who  looked  on  were  moved 
by  the  same  spirit  of  easy  enjoyment.  It  was 
not  merely  that  every  man  in  the  crowd,  from 
the  ruffianly-looking  gipsies,  motionless  on  their 


THE   VIRGIN    OF   CARMEN        303 

mules,  to  the  slim  cadets,  the  very  type  of  high- 
bred chivalry,  was  reverently  uncovered ;  there 
was  in  their  faces  a  something  finer  than  rever- 
ence, a  whole-hearted  acceptance  of  the  thing 
done  as  an  expression  of  their  common  emotion. 
It  was  as  if  the  iron  heart  of  the  city  had 
melted  in  a  mood  of  tenderness.  Fierce  Toledo, 
the  city  of  the  sword,  had  blossomed  in  white- 
clad  girls  and  white  doves  to  do  honour  to  the 
Virgin. 

As  they  moved  slowly  round  the  Plaza  the 
girls  beckoned  to  companions  in  the  crowd,  who 
emerged  into  the  soft  glow  of  the  candles  and 
took  hold  of  the  white  ribbon  which  linked  them 
to  the  Virgin  so  that  the  procession  always  grew. 

Behind  it  the  business  of  the  Plaza  was 
gradually  resumed.  Little  boys  shouldered  the 
red  roulette  cylinders  by  which  one  gambles 
innocently  for  azucarillos,  gipsies  put  spurs  to 
their  mules  and  rode  away,  alert  waiters  polished 
their  little  tables,  and  the  market-women  re- 
turned to  their  unguarded  wares  upon  the  pave- 
ment and  raised  their  harsh  voices  in  passionate 
rivalry. 

Crossing  the  Plaza  we  asked  a  priest  the 
meaning  of  the  procession.  "  It  is  the  feast  of 
the  Virgin  of  Carmen,"  he  said,  "the  Patroness 
of  Bull-fighters." 

So  that  even  in  her  mood  of  tenderness 
Toledo  remembered  the  sword. 

On  account  of  the  fiesta,  I  suppose,  we  found 


304  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

the  Zocodover  dark  and  deserted  after  dinner 
and  all  Toledo  gathered  upon  a  little  arc-lighted, 
bat-haunted  terrace  with  a  privet  hedge  and  mul- 
berry trees  overlooking  the  black  gulf  of  the 
Tagus.  For  entertainment  there  was  a  band, 
an  open-air  cafe,  and  a  kinematograph  which 
promised  pictures  of  "  The  Chicago  Tramways, 
.Japanese  Painters  at  work,  The  San  Francisco 
Earthquake,  The  Ascent  of  Mont  Blanc,  and 
The  Assassination  of  the  King  and  Queen  of 
Servia."  In  contrast  to  the  evening  crowd  at 
Madrid,  everybody  here  seemed  to  be  friendly, 
content  to  walk  up  and  down,  eat  caramels  or 
the  marchpane  for  which  Toledo  is  famous,  listen 
to  the  band,  and  answer  with  alacrity  the  purring 
of  the  electric  bell  which  announced  that  another 
representation  of  the  pictures  was  about  to  begin. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

GOOD-BYE  TO  SPAIN THE  POSSIBILITIES  OF  THIRD- 
CLASS  TRAVELLING A  LONG  JOURNEY MIRANDA  AGAIN 

— A      LITTLE      DRAMA OUR      CAPTAIN BASQUE     SONGS 

"  ATHENS  WAS  ONCE  A  FAMOUS  PLACE  " DOWN  THE  BILBAO 

RIVER CROSSING  THE  BAY FINDING  USHANT THE  LONG- 
SHIPS CARDIFF  ROADS 

GOOD-BYE  to  Toledo  was  also  good-bye  to 
Spain,  for  the  rest  of  our  journeying  was 
merely  the  passing  renewal  of  previous  impres- 
sions. We  took  an  early  train  to  Madrid  where 

we  spent  the  day  with  C ,  intending  to  leave 

for  Bilbao  at  five  minutes  to  nine  in  the  evening. 
We  had  yet  to  learn  the  full  possibilities  of  third- 
class  railway  travelling  in  Spain,  however,  for  when 

on  C 's  advice  we  got  to  the  station  an  hour 

before  the  time  of  starting,  a  sympathetic  official 
told  us  that  all  the  third-class  tickets  for  that 
particular  train  were  sold. 

"  These  ladies,"  he  said,  pointing  to  a  group  of 
tired  but  patient-looking  women  in  a  corner  of 
the  booking-hall,  "  were  here  at  seven  o'clock,  but 
alas !  too  late." 

We  understood,  then,  why  Spanish  main-line 
railway  stations  are  always  crowded  with  people 


20 


305 


306  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

who  have  the  look  of  patiently  waiting  upon 
Providence.  There  was  another  train  at  ten 
minutes  past  ten,  but  it  would  take  five  hours 
longer  on  the  journey,  and  instead  of  reaching 
Bilbao  at  half-past  ten  in  the  morning  we  should 
not  get  there  until  half-past  four  in  the  afternoon. 
There  was  nothing  to  be  done,  so  we  sat  down  at 
the  little  tables  on  the  platform  outside  the  refresh- 
ment-room— themselves  darkly  significant  of  time 
to  kill — drank  vermouth  and  watched  the  five 
minutes  to  nine  train  fill  up  with  luckier  people. 
Their  manner  of  excited  congratulation  spoke 
volumes.  The  departure  of  a  train  from  the 
Spanish  capital  is  like  the  starting  of  an  emigrant 
steamer ;  it  is  a  business  of  passionate  and  even 
despairing  farewells  and  the  shy  beginnings  of 
acquaintances  for  the  journey.  Several  promising 
little  affairs  were  in  progress  under  our  eyes.  The 
presence  of  two  ambulance  men  with  a  stretcher 

seemed  unnecessary,  but  C told  us  that  only  a 

few  days  earlier  a  poor  woman  taking  leave  of 
her  son  had  in  her  excitement  been  drawn  under 
the  train  and  fatally  injured.  As  the  moment  of 
starting  arrived  the  noise  became  deafening ; 
people  clung  to  the  train  as  if  they  would  storm 
the  carriages,  and  officials  ran  up  and  down  the 
platform  with  curses  and  cries  of  despair. 

Our  train  was  fortunately  less  crowded,  and 
when  I  look  back  on  the  nineteen-hour  journey 
the  time  seems  to  have  passed  very  quickly.  The 
night  was  fine  and  comparatively  cool,  with  a  half 


A   LONG  JOURNEY  307 

moon  but  only  light  enough  to  make  Escorial 
mysterious,  and  the  granite  country  of  the  Guadar- 
rama  was  heard  rather  than  seen  as  we  rattled 
among  the  foothills.  Somewhere,  I  suppose  it  was 
at  Avila,  we  were  awakened  out  of  a  doze  by 
"  A-gua  fresco,!"  and  bargained  sleepily  with  a 
small  boy  for  sweet  cakes  and  wine.  The  quick 
resource  of  this  youngster  amused  us.  Time 
pressed,  and  disregarding  the  bottle  I  held  out 
to  be  refilled  he  dashed  into  the  station,  returning 
with  a  full  bottle  in  exchange.  It  must  have  been 
here  that  we  were  joined  by  a  Civil  Guard,  more 
approachable  than  his  fellows,  who  accepted  a 
cigarette  and  told  me  many  things  about  his 
corps ;  their  life,  duties,  and  number — which  last 
I  have  forgotten,  though  it  surprised  me  at  the 
time.  I  fancy  that  he  presently  feared  that  he 
had  been  too  communicative,  or  perhaps  I  bored 
him,  for  when  I  settled  myself  in  my  corner  with 
closed  eyes  he  very  quietly  picked  up  his  rifle  and 
moved  to  the  compartment  at  the  other  end  of  the 
carriage.  A  smell  of  burning  mingled  with  my 
dreams,  which  were  cut  short  by  a  yell  from  James. 
He  had  dropped  off  to  sleep  with  a  lighted  cigarette 
in  his  fingers,  and  the  result  was  devout  thankful- 
ness that  he  had  brought  a  second  pair  of  trousers, 
and  that  circumstances  permitted  a  change  en 
route. 

Dawn  came  beautifully  between  Avila  and 
Medina.  The  red  eastern  sky  thickened  about 
round-headed  pines  like  dregs  of  wine,  and  the 


308 


A    SPANISH   HOLIDAY 


level  surface  of  the  corn  looked  as  if  covered  with 
hoar-frost.  The  sight  of  tall  factory  chimneys  as 
we  clanked  slowly  into  Valladolid  removed  our 
feeling  of  regret  that  we  had  not  found  time  to 
visit  that  city  with  a  romantic  name. 

Miranda,  where  we  had  to  change,  we  found 
still  keeping  up  its  character  as  a  place  for  looking 
round.  Among  the  strangely  mingled  crowd  of 
men  and  women,  young  and  old,  rich  and  poor, 
shepherds,  gipsies,  and  soldiers,  two  sun-burned, 
black-bearded  Franciscan  novices  in  brown  habits 
with  black  hats,  gazed  with  alarm  at  a  sinuous 
young  woman  in  a  white  dress,  bare-armed  to  the 
elbow,  with  a  pink  silk  petticoat  and  white  shoes, 
who  showed  signs  of  a  disposition  to  enter  their 
compartment. 

The  country  between  Miranda  and  Bilbao  was 
new  to  us,  and  the  transition  from  the  character 
of  Castile  to  that  of  the  Basque  provinces  was 
interesting  to  see.  Gradually  as  we  ascended 
through  Alava  the  tawny  cliff-like  sierras  changed 
to  rugged  mountain-peaks,  maize  took  the  place  of 
corn,  and  the  land  became  greener  and  greener. 
Characteristically  Basque  names  appeared  on  the 
boards  of  the  stations ;  Zuazo,  Yzarra,  and  Ynoso, 
with  their  suggestion  of  prehistoric  reptiles ;  the 
domed  lanterns  and  friendly  porticos  of  the  brown 
churches  were  once  more  in  evidence,  and  the 
people  on  the  platforms  were  less  grave,  less  re- 
served than  those  with  whom  we  had  lately 
become  familiar.  Between  Ynoso  and  Orduno 


A   LITTLE   DRAMA  309 

the  line  twists  and  turns  in  an  extraordinary 
manner ;  at  one  point  there  is  a  seven-mile  loop, 
with  the  ends  only  half  a  mile  apart.  The  scenery 
in  this  neighbourhood  is  magnificently  Alpine. 
On  the  left  rises  the  lofty  Pefia  de  Orduna,  impres- 
sively topped  with  a  cross,  and  to  the  right  a  deep 
wooded  valley  descends  to  a  bottom  of  maizefields, 
dotted  with  little  farms,  reminding  one  strongly  of 
pictures  of  Switzerland. 

We  shared  the  compartment  with  a  rather 
gross-looking  middle-aged  man,  apparently  a  com- 
mercial traveller,  and  a  tall,  good-looking  girl  of 
the  poorer  class,  who  seemed  worn  out  with  her 
journey.  Her  simplicity  and  fatigue  gave  the 
man  an  opportunity  for  striking  up  an  acquaint- 
ance, which  he  then  tried  to  improve  beyond  her 
liking.  Assuming  that  we  knew  nothing  of  his 
language,  he  persecuted  her  with  proposals,  amus- 
ingly cautious  from  the  commercial  point  of  view, 
which  she  civilly  but  firmly  declined.  The  dull 
brute  couldn't  see  that  her  reluctance  was  not 
mercenary.  From  sheer  helplessness  she  allowed 
him  to  get  water  for  her  to  drink  at  one  of  the 
stations,  but  refused  the  glass  of  gin  he  offered. 
Her  look  of  bored  uneasiness  was  very  painful  to 
see,  and  we  longed  for  an  opportunity  to  interfere. 
Our  difficulties  with  the  language,  however,  might 
only  have  complicated  an  already  delicate  situation 
and  further  alarmed  her,  so  we  held  our  tongues, 
though  once  or  twice  I  fancied  that  she  looked  at 
us  thoughtfully  as  if  making  up  her  mind  to  risk 


310  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

an  appeal.  I  am  glad  to  say  the  little  drama  ended 
happily,  for  the  girl  was  met  at  Bilbao  by  her 
mother  to  the  discomfiture  of  her  sleek  pursuer, 
who  with  the  approaching  end  of  the  journey  had 
risen  to  what  he  evidently  regarded  as  rashly 
generous  proposals. 

In  the  Cafe  Ingles,  which  looks  out  on  the 
busy  Arenal  at  Bilbao,  we  bargained  with  the 
English  captain  of  a  tramp  steamer  for  a  passage 
home.  The  band,  led  by  two  young  ladies  in  pic- 
ture hats,  with  nice  discrimination  for  the  tastes  of 
English  captains — there  were  four  of  them  besides 
two  mates  and  a  chief  engineer  in  our  corner 
of  the  room  —  played  the  "  Intermezzo "  from 
"  Cavalleria  Rusticana."  During  the  performance 
the  English  captains  looked  very  sentimental,  and 
when  it  was  finished  they  applauded  loudly  and 
called  for  more  drinks. 

Our  captain — for  by  this  time  we  had  made 
him  ours — had  the  hoarsest  voice  I  have  ever 
heard.  He  had  also  bold  black  eyes  and  stiff 
black  hair.  He  said  that  his  vessel,  which  lay  off 
the  University,  would  sail  for  Cardiff  at  midnight, 
and  that  we  could  come  on  board  whenever  we 
liked. 

We  spent  the  evening  with  our  friend  Mr. 
Merton,  who  invited  us  to  supper  at  his  pleasant 
villa  in  the  suburb  of  Deusto.  On  our  way  thither 
in  the  tram  we  saw  the  only  drunken  man  we  had 
seen  in  Spain.  He  was  a  ship's  fireman  in  the 
maudlin  stage  of  liquor,  flinging  his  arms  about 


BASQUE   SONGS  311 

and  singing  foolishly.  A  woman  in  the  tram 
giggled,  but  all  the  men  looked  ashamed  and 
glanced  at  us  two  foreigners  as  if  they  would 
apologise  for  the  spectacle.  Our  last  night  in 
Spain  was  made  musical  by  young  Mr.  Merton, 
who  sang  old  Basque  songs,  "  Guernicaco  Arbola," 
"  Iru  Damacho,"  "  Katalin,"  and  "  Eleizara  Joan," 
and  a  spirited  modern  composition,  "  La  del 
Panuelo  Rojo,"  by  Ignacio  Tabuyo,  a  Bilbao  poet 
and  musician,  in  a  splendid  baritone. 

Shortly  after  eleven  we  went  down  to  the  river 
by  the  University  and  hailed  a  little  boat  in  the 
dark.  It  was  paddled  by  a  thin  old  man  whose 
nationality  we  could  not  guess.  His  English  was 
pleasantly  broken,  but  at  a  slight  contretemps  with 
another  boatman  he  made  use  of  language  which 
paled  the  ruddy  glow  from  the  iron  foundry  at 
El  Desierto  down  the  river. 

"  You're  not  a  Spaniard,"  we  said  together. 

"  No,  I'm  a  Greek,"  he  said.  He  was  born  in 
Athens,  but  had  spent  most  of  his  life  in  England, 
where  his  boys  were  at  school.  "  My  boys  tell 
me,"  he  said,  "that  Athens  was  once  a  famous 
place."  We  found  that  he  belonged  to  our  vessel, 
which  lay  under  the  tips  on  the  far  side  of  the 
,  river.  She  was  about  two  hundred  feet  over  all, 
she  carried  a  crew  of  seventeen  hands,  and  two 
thousand  tons  of  iron  ore,  and,  according  to  our 
Athenian,  she  rolled  like  a  bloody  pig.  Her  name 
—on  second  thoughts  I  will  not  give  her  name. 

We  had  very  comfortable  berths  in  the  deck 


312  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

cabin,  which  was  right  aft.  When  we  had  stowed 
away  our  scanty  luggage  we  went  on  deck,  where 
men  who  talked  in  subdued  voices  were  about  the 
final  preparations  for  departure ;  finishing  off  the 
hatches,  hoisting  the  masthead  light,  and  getting 
ready  to  lift  the  anchor.  High  above  us  on  the 
river  wall  a  carabinero  leaned  on  his  rifle  under  a 
fizzling  arc  light.  A  gentle-voiced  young  man 
who  lounged  in  the  alley-way  under  the  bridge 
introduced  himself  as  the  chief  engineer.  An  order 
was  given  followed  by  the  noise  of  engines,  and  up 
came  the  anchor,  each  link  of  the  chain  bumping 
heavily  on  the  deck.  Then  the  river  pilot,  a  tall 
Spaniard  with  a  grey  pointed  beard,  wearing  a 
peaked  cap  and  a  long  overcoat,  came  over  the 
side  apparently  from  nowhere.  He  lifted  his  cap 
and  silently  climbed  the  bridge.  The  engineer 
said  "  She's  moving,"  and  the  next  moment  we 
felt  a  thrill  under  our  feet.  Moorings  were  cast 
off  with  muffled  cries  of  "  All  clear  aft,  sir,"  the 
engineer  swung  himself  down  a  ladder,  and  when 
we  looked  up  at  the  bank  again  the  motionless 
figure  of  the  carabinero  was  already  astern.  There 
was  something  so  peculiarly  furtive  in  our  leaving 
the  shore  that  one  half  expected  the  carabinero  to 
start  to  life  and  call  us  back. 

Coming  down  the  river  the  steamer  gave  us  a 
taste  of  her  quality.  She  seemed  to  have  a  pig- 
like  disinclination  to  answer  her  helm.  Twice  we 
went  through  the  following  performance :  "  Hard 
a-port !  "  Nothing  happened.  "  Stand  by  the 


DOWN   BILBAO   RIVER  313 

anchor!"  immediately  followed  by  "Let  go  the 
anchor ! " 

Then  a  line  was  got  out  to  starboard,  and  with 
much  language  and  the  rattle  of  the  donkey  we 
were  warped  into  our  course.  The  first  time  we 
touched  the  bank — "  Turned  up  a  few  stones,"  as 
the  captain  phrased  it — and  the  second  we  nearly 
sank  a  couple  of  barges.  After  this  exploit  the 
captain  said  in  a  tone  of  mild  wonder,  presumably 
for  our  benefit,  as  we  had  joined  him  and  the 
pilot  on  the  bridge,  "  Can't  understand  it ;  she's 
never  behaved  like  this  coming  down  the  river 
before.  Dan,"  to  the  mate,  "  are  them  steering 
chains  clear  ? "  Dan  disappeared  aft.  The  pilot 
said  nothing.  As  if  grieved  by  his  silence  the 
captain  called  irritably  down  the  tube  to  the  wheel- 
house  below,  "  Can't  you  see  out  of  your  windows  ?  " 
adding  to  us,  confidentially,  "I  don't  think  that 
old  man's  eyes  are  very  good." 

Dan  reported  all  clear  aft,  and  we  moved  slowly 
down  the  widening  river.  Ahead  of  us  on  the  left 
bank  the  ruddy  blaze  of  the  foundry  at  El  Desierto 
grew  brighter  and  brighter;  on  the  right  a  tram- 
car  from  Las  Arenas  moved  like  a  glow-worm  in 
the  direction  of  Bilbao ;  above,  the  moon  showed 
faintly  through  clouds.  The  captain  looked  at  his 
watch.  "  At  San  Nicolas,"  he  said,  "  they  show  a 
red  light  at  high  water.  After  that  we  can't  go 
down,  but  must  give  way  to  vessels  coming  up. 
But  I  think  we  shall  do  it." 

With  a  subtly  foreign  "  Good  night "  the  river 


314  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

pilot  got  over  the  side,  and  the  harbour  pilot  came 
aboard.  As  we  quickened  to  half  speed,  familiar 
buildings  on  the  now  distant  right  bank  slid  past 
us.  The  Sailors'  Institute  was  in  darkness.  On 
the  left  we  passed  close  to  a  brilliantly  lighted 
workshop,  humming  with  machinery.  We  could 
see  the  black  figures  of  men  moving  inside.  Now 
we  saw  ahead  the  lights  of  Portugalete,  reflected  in 
the  outer  harbour,  the  green-glowing  tamarisks  of 
Las  Arenas,  and  the  black  bar  of  the  flying  ferry ; 
the  whole  backed  by  vague  mountains  mingling 
with  the  sky. 

We  opened  the  outer  harbour.  A  salt  fresh 
air  blew  up  on  our  faces,  and  on  the  black  surface 
of  the  water  there  was  a  hint  of  foam.  Suddenly 
from  a  great  headland  on  the  right  came  two 
flashes  in  quick  succession,  as  if  by  the  unclosing 
of  a  hand.  On  the  left  a  little  pier  pushed  out 
into  the  harbour;  a  tiny  uniformed  figure  leaned 
on  the  railing. 

"  Give  him  a  shout/'  said  the  captain. 

"CarrdeefF!"  called  the  pilot.  The  tiny  uni- 
formed figure  waved  its  arm  and  disappeared. 

We  were  in  the  outer  harbour,  and  already  the 
steamer  lifted  to  the  Biscay  swell.  The  pilot  got 
over  the  side,  and  disappeared  in  the  darkness.  On 
the  long  mole  ahead  the  two  arms  of  a  giant  crane 
were  lifted  as  if  in  entreaty,  and  below  the  flashing 
light  on  the  headland  there  was  the  soft,  steady 
glow  of  a  fishing  village.  So  our  last  vision  of 
Spain  was  to  be  of  the  little  place  of  crooked 


CROSSING   THE    BAY 


315 


streets  and  hidden  gardens  whose  name  we  did 
not  know. 

During  our  first  morning  at  sea  the  captain 
told  us  all  about  crossing  the  Bay.  He  believed 
that  there  were  a  few  charts  on  board,  but  they 
had  mostly  peeled  off.  He  did  not  hold  with  any 
finicking  nonsense  about  taking  observations. 

"  I've  got  my  course  in  my  'ead,"  he  explained. 
For  the  rest  he  relied  on  a  five-shilling  watch  and 
the  patent  log. 

No  doubt  it  was  all  right,  but  we  may  be 
excused  for  feeling  uncomfortable.  We  were  not 
encouraged  when  we  saw  two  deck  hands  lashing 
a  gangway  of  planks  from  the  main  hatch  to  the 
ladder  of  the  deck-house  amidships. 

"  What's  that  for  ? "  we  asked. 

"  She  ships  a  lot  of  water,"  they  said. 

She  did. 

Meanwhile  the  captain  talked  about  the  new 
load-line,  which  he  said  was  a  sop  to  owners  to 
balance  the  more  stringent  regulations  for  the 
comfort  of  sailormen.  He  spoke  with  pride  of 
the  speed  of  his  vessel.  She  did  an  average  of 
eight  and  a  half  knots,  and  left  all  other  tramps 
behind  her.  He  believed  in  going  ahead  what- 
ever the  weather;  if  you  went  ahead  you  must 
get  somewhere.  Unfortunately  he  carried  only 
Spanish  firemen ;  one  of  the  three  had  been 
knocked  up  with  the  heat  last  night — what  could 
you  expect  of  men  who  lived  on  bread  and  a  little 
wine  ?  The  best  firemen  were  Liverpool  Irish- 


316  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

men,  but  they  had  to  be  watched  or  they  would 
steal  the  ship  before  they  came  aboard.  Sailoring 
wasn't  what  it  used  to  be ;  captains  used  to  be 
able  to  make  a  bit  of  money.  In  the  Black  Sea 
trade,  for  example,  there  used  to  be  nice  little 
perquisites  for  mates  and  captains.  You  could 
sweep  some  of  the  grain  through  holes  into 
bunkers — and  sweep  it  out  again  after  the  cargo 
had  been  discharged.  That  was  the  mate's  per- 
quisite. Also  something  was  allowed  for  matting 
— which  could  be  used  again.  Nowadays,  too, 
the  men  were  so  particular  about  their  grub. 

"Some  men  wouldn't  be  satisfied  not  if  you 
gave  them  the  left  wing  of  a  hangel." 

Whenever  we  were  not  talking  to  the  captain 
we  were  approached  by  the  chief  engineer.  They 
were  very  good  friends,  but  they  differed  in 
their  politics,  the  captain  being  a  Tory,  and  the 
engineer  a  Socialist.  The  engineer  complained 
that  the  captain  took  advantage  of  his  position 
to  make  use  of  personalities  which  he  could  not 
return ;  also  he  would  not  read  the  books  he  lent 
him.  These  turned  out  to  be  chiefly  Clarion 
reprints,  writings  of  the  Rev.  R.  J.  Campbell,  and 
pamphlets  of  the  I.L.P.  The  engineer,  who  was 
a  little  keen -faced  Welshman,  had  a  surprising 
acquaintance  with  unrelated  facts  of  biology.  To 
expose  some  fallacy  of  the  captain's  he  set  up  a 
microscope  on  the  hatchway  head,  and  showed 
us  the  stomata  and  spiral  vessels  of  larch  leaves 
and  bark. 


CROSSING   THE   BAY  317 

The  captain  on  his  part  had  a  remarkably 
sound  taste  in  fiction.  He  spoke  with  enthusiasm 
of  Conrad  and  Bullen.  Clark  Russell  he  couldn't 
read,  and  he  didn't  care  much  for  Kipling  or 
Jacobs.  But  his  favourite  author  was  a  man  of 
his  own  county,  a  Dorset  man.  For  the  moment 
he  couldn't  remember  his  name.  Hardy,  I  sug- 
gested. Yes,  that  was  it. 

66 1  don't  need  to  be  told  the  name  of  a  place 
he  writes  about.  I  can  see  it.  Talking  with  the 
pen,  that's  what  I  call  it." 

Except  for  a  distant  tramp  or  two  we  were 
alone  upon  the  indigo  sea,  but  late  in  the  glow- 
ing evening  we  saw  two  bonito  or  tunny  boats  ; 
large,  swift,  red-sailed  fore  and  aft  schooners,  with 
a  tiny  jigger  astern.  At  the  bows  were  two  im- 
mense fishing-rods  like  the  curved  antennae  of  a 
giant  butterfly.  They  came  on  grandly  against 
a  sky  of  bronze,  just  beyond  hailing  distance, 
with  a  rush  of  violet  foam  about  their  bows. 
Then  we  saw  three  whales  spouting  astern,  and 
presently  a  school  of  porpoises. 

The  Athenian  had  not  belied  his  vessel.  She 
rolled,  and  she  shipped  a  lot  of  water.  That 
night  we  turned  in  in  our  trousers.  By  jamming 
one  elbow  against  the  bulkhead,  and  one  knee 
against  the  edge  of  the  bunk,  it  was  just  possible 
to  lie.  The  next  morning  we  woke  to  a  grey 
sea  with  a  heavier  swell,  a  drizzle  of  rain  and  a 
fresh  breeze  from  the  north-west.  The  funnel 
described  an  arc  of  forty-five  degrees.  White 


318  A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 

seas  poured  over  the  port  rail  and  flooded  the 
main  deck.  According  to  the  five-shilling  watch 
and  the  patent  log,  we  were  due  to  sight  Ushant 
at  two  o'clock.  As  noon  wore,  the  captain 
and  the  first  mate — a  little  bottle-nosed  man, 
who  had  once  been  a  captain — talked  in  under- 
tones, and  stared  in  the  direction  where  Ushant 
ought  to  be.  The  weather  to  the  eastward  grew 
thicker.  There  was  no  sign  of  Ushant ;  nothing 
but  a  French  fishing-boat  under  bare  poles.  We 
derived  a  little  comfort  from  knots  of  seaweed 
on  the  heaving  water,  which  showed  that  we 
were  not  very  far  from  land,  until  we  remembered 
that,  from  a  sailor's  point  of  view,  it  was  exactly 
the  land  that  we  wanted  to  avoid.  The  captain, 
an  excellent  trencherman,  did  not  wish  for  any 
tea.  He  and  the  mate  now  sat  apart  at  opposite 
ends  of  the  bridge,  and  said  nothing  to  each 
other,  though  occasionally,  after  looking  through 
his  binoculars,  the  captain  said  something  to  him- 
self. I  think  he  a  little  regretted  having  talked  so 
much  about  his  five-shilling  watch  and  his  patent 
log. 

Dusk  fell ;  we  had  not  seen  Ushant.  We 
retired  to  the  chart-house  under  the  bridge,  and 
with  a  vague  idea  of  security  pillowed  our  heads 
on  the  Union  Jack,  and  watched  the  starboard 
light  plunge  into  the  sea  and  soar  up,  up  into 
the  cloudy  sky. 

"Well,"  said  the  skipper,  with  exaggerated 
cheerfulness,  "if  we  can't  pick  up  one  milestone 


THE   LONGSHIPS  319 

we'll  go  on  to  the  next.  We  ought  to  sight  the 
Wolf  about  three  in  the  morning." 

I  for  one  was  convinced  that  we  should  find 
the  Wolf  with  our  stem,  and  that  the  steamer 
would  open  like  a  paper  bag  of  wet  plums,  and 
let  out  the  heavy  cargo  and  ourselves. 

We  climbed  on  to  the  bridge,  which  behaved 
like  a  switchback.  The  mate  was  looking  very 
depressed. 

"  Dirty  weather,"  we  said  sympathetically. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  and  for  a  moment  did  not 
continue.  Then  he  went  on  : 

"  I  had  a  letter  from  the  missus  the  day  before 
we  left  Bilbao,  and  she  tells  me  that  the  second 
sowing  of  beans  has  gone  the  same  way  as  the 
first/' 

I  woke  suddenly  at  four  o'clock  the  next 
morning.  A  cold  grey  light  filtered  through  the 
port  at  my  side.  James  was  missing  from  the 
bunk  below.  I  ran  barefoot  on  deck  to  find  that 
the  Longships  were  already  astern,  and  that  we 
were  opening  out  Pendeen.  It  was  a  grey  morn- 
ing, with  veiled  sunlight  and  a  drizzle  of  rain ; 
typical  Cornish  weather.  James,  with  a  great 
air  of  superiority,  sat  on  the  bridge  drinking  tea 
with  the  second  mate.  There  was  something  a 
little  exasperating  in  passing  so  close  to  home 
that  we  could  see  the  white  puffs  of  an  early 
train,  with  the  knowledge  that  to  reach  home 
would  require  a  day's  railway  travelling  on  the 
morrow.  The  skipper  agreed  that  if  we  fell  in 


320  A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 

with  a  St.  Ives  fishing-boat  we  should  ask  the  men 
to  put  us  ashore.  He  himself,  with  deference  to 
me,  had  a  poor  opinion  of  St.  Ives  fishermen. 
They  were  all  savages  and  pirates.  Once  he  had 
got  among  their  luggers  off  the  Brisons  and  they 
had  cut  away  his  patent  log  and  stoned  him  with 
ballast. 

All  that  day  we  steamed  up  the  yellowing 
waters  of  the  Bristol  Channel.  When  the  hatch- 
heads  were  knocked  off  I  looked  down  at  the 
cargo.  In  spite  of  our  rolling  in  the  Bay  the 
heavy  stuff  lay  in  a  finely  pointed  conical  heap, 
just  as  it  had  fallen  from  the  tip.  At  seven 
o'clock  we  were  among  grimy  tugs  in  Cardiff 
Roads  exchanging  chaff  with  the  crew  of  a  rusty 
tramp  from  Buenos  Aires,  waiting  for  the  flag  to 
run  up  at  the  pierhead  as  a  signal  that  we  might 
move  into  dock. 

Very  carefully  we  crept  to  our  narrow  berth 
between  the  dock  walls.  Two  customs  officers 
came  aboard,  glanced  up  curiously  from  the 
paper  the  captain  handed  them  to  us  and,  smiling, 
asked  a  few  questions,  and  next  moment  we  were 
ashore.  Our  Spanish  holiday  was  over. 

The  effect  of  being  transported  from  Spain  to 
England  with  only  an  interval  of  sea,  which  is 
no  man's  country,  was  very  strange.  Both  James 
and  I  are  lovers  of  our  native  land,  but  for  a  few 
minutes  as  we  stood  in  the  chill  rain  at  a  street 
corner  waiting  for  a  tram  we  suffered  an  acute 
depression  of  spirits.  There  was  no  colour  any- 


A    GREY   LAND  321 

where ;  nobody  spoke  or  moved  with  any  vitality. 
They  were  grey  people  in  a  grey  land.  We  had 
no  place  here.  The  impression  of  strangeness 
lasted  only  for  a  few  minutes,  and  then  we  took 
hold  of  reality  again. 


21 


INDEX 


ADMIRAL  CHURRUCA,  139 

—  Antonio  de  Oquendo,  23 
llava,  33,  54,  161,  163,  308 

-  Concha  de,  161,  176 
Albarkas,  151 

Alfonso  VI.,  220,  292 
Algodor,  283 
Algorta,  48,  74 
Alonso,  the  Infante,  212 
Alpargatas,  26 
Amboto,  Mount,  152-156 
Amorebieta,  77-84 
Ana,  Hermitage  of  St.,  37 
Andalusian  gipsy,  the,  275 
Angelico,  Fra,  270 
Antonia,  106 

Architecture,    Moorish,    201,   284, 
291-293 

-  Spanish,  68,  187,  188,  241,  252 
Arinez,  176 

Arlanzon,  the  river,  184,  201 
Arms  of  Biscay,  the,  102 
Asuncion,  112 
Athenian,  the,  311 
Athens,  311 
Autos-da-fe,  277 
Avila,  234,  307 

BAEDEKER,  251,  254,  290 
Banner  of  Las  Navas,  205 
Barber,  the,  22 
Barcelona,  285,  286 
Basque  churches,  35 


Basque  dancing,  110-112 

language,  55,  64,  143 

literature,  104 

-  music,  67,  104,  112,  311 

musical  instruments,  67,  112, 

144 
nationalism,  54 

—  provinces,  54,  169 

-  villages,  35,  169 
Basques,  the,  24,  36,  55,  143 

character  of  the,  55,  56,  104 

origin  of  the,  55,  143 

Bayonne,  16 

Beans,  319 

Beggars,  185,  208,  209,  210 

Bells,  35,  81,  98,  301 

Bermeo,  58 

Biarritz,  17 

Bible  in  Spain,  The,  143,  238 

Bidassoa,  the  river,  17 

Bilbao,  3,  31,  39-76,  310-314 

—  Arenal,  53,  310 

—  Cafe  Ingles,  310 

-  Diputacion,  68,  69 

-  Market,  41,  57,  58 
Plaza  Vieja,  57 

-  Post  Office,  71,  72 

-  River,  39,  312-314 

San  Antonio  Abad,  church  of, 

57 

—  San  Nicolas,  church  of,  65,  66 
Santiago,  church  of,  60 

University,  53,  310,  311 


324 


A   SPANISH    HOLIDAY 


Biscay,  arms  of,  102 

-  Bay  of,  20,  76,  315-318 

—  lords  of,  102 
Bishop  Maurice,  189,  191 
Black  Prince,  the,  172 
Boina,  the,  12 

Bonito  boats,  317 

Bonnat,  272 

Books  of  offices,  192,  298 

Bordeaux,  12 

Borrow,  George,  143,  144,  238,  243, 

286 

Botticelli,  188,  265 
Boys,  61,  100,  291 
Brisons,  the,  320 
Bristol  Channel,  the,  320 
Wagon-works  Company,  the, 

34 

Buenos  Aires,  320 
Bullen,  F.  T.,  317 
Bull-fighting,  273-275,  277 
Burgos,  54,  144,  176,  184-224 

Arco  de  Santa  Maria,  185 

Bridge  of  Santa  Maria,  185. 

195 

—  Cafe  Suizo,  194 

—  Casa  Consist orial,  221 

-  Casa  de  Miranda,  223-224 

-  Castillo,  201 

-  Cathedral,  186-192,  199,  219 

Chapel  of  St.  Ana,  190, 

219 
Chapel  of  Constable,  190, 

191,  219 
compared   with   Toledo, 

286-287 

Golden  Staircase,  190 

-    Puerta    de    Sarmental, 

197,  219 
Chapel  of  San  Jose,  200 

—  Church  of  San  Esteban,  200 
San  Gil,  220 


Burgos  Church  of  San  Nicolas,  220 

Santa  Agueda,  220 

climate  of,  185 

-  Paseo  de  la  Isla,  205 
de  la  Quinta,  207,  207, 

217 

-  del  Espolon,  185,  194 

-  Plaza  Mayor,  221 

—  Puente  de  Malatos,  202,  205 

—  Solar  del  Cid,  222 
Burne-Jones,  265,  272 

CADETS,  military,  294,  300 
Campbell,  Rev.  R.  J.,  316 
Canons'  Mass,  197-199 
Cantabrian  Mountains,  34,  1C1 
Captain,  our,  310,  313-320 
Carabineros,  27,  130-138,  312 
Cardeiia,  San  Pedro  de,  222 
Cardiff,  6,  310,  320 
Carlism,  153 

Carlists,  24,  55,  98,  150,  157-158 
Carnations,  52 
Castile,  540 

-  Eleanor  of,  201 

—  Ferdinand  V.  of,  69 

—  Plains  of  Old,  181-184,  230, 
233,  283 

Cavalleria  Rtisticana,  310 

Cemeteries,  Basque,  35,  63 

Cervantes,  293 

Ghacoli,  82,  121 

Chinese  Musical  Instruments,  144 

Christopher  Columbus,  212 

Chulos,  274 

Cid,  the,  220,  222-223,  292 

and  Ximena,  bones  of,  222 

Coffer  of,  192 

-  Solar  del,  222 

Civil  Guards,  33,  42,  165,  177-178, 

231,  307 
Clarion,  The,  316 


INDEX 


325 


Cologne,  John  of,  208 

Simon  of,  209 

Conrad,  Joseph,  317 

Consumes  tax,  21 

Cordova,  285,  286 

Corrida,  The,  273 

Coruna,  228 

Cory,  Mr.  John,  48 

Customs,  the  Collector  of,  120 

officials,  18 

Daily  Mail,  The,  126 

Dan,  313 

Dancing,  110-113 

Dawlish,  26 

Dax,  15 

Deusto,  310 

Deva,  35,  130,  133,  139 

Devonshire,  34,  130,  182 

Dogs,  80,  155 

Don  Jose,  94-119 

—  Juan,  103 
Quixote,  272 

-  Tello,  103 
Drinks,  257,  275 
Drunkard,  the,  310 
Duero,  the,  184 

Durango,  39,  80,  130,  140-159 

—  Artecalle,  151 

Church    of     San     Pedro    de 

Tavira,  142 

—  Fonda  Olmedal,  142,  147,  150 

-  Portico,  142 

EAGLES,  147,  156 
Ebro,  the,  176,  180 
Education,  93 
Edward  I.,  201,  204 
Eibar,  139 

El  Desierto,  48,  311,  313 
Eleanor  of  Castile,  201,  204 
Electricity,  49 


Eleizara  Joan,  311 

Elgoibar,  139 

El  Greco,  Burial  of  Count  Orgdz,  297 

Emerson,  49 

Englishman  of  Burgos,  the,  193, 194 

Englishmen,  ways  of,  159 

Enrique  III.,  208 

Erckmann-Chatrian,  13 

Ermua,  139 

Escorial,  234,  307 

Euskara,  143 

FIESTA  DE  NAVARRA,  66 

of  the  Virgin  of  Carmen,  303 

Flowers,  35,  52,  86,  207 
Forales,  33,  97,  127 
Franciscan  novices,  308 
Fueros,  the  Basque,  55,  103 

GAINSBOROUGH,  269 

Gandara,  272 

Gil  de  Siloe,  212 

Giorgione,  Madonna  with  St.  Antony, 

271 

Gipsies,  303 

Girls,  intelligence  of,  101 
Go  jain,  167 
Gomecha,  176 
Gorbea,  Pena  de,  161,  168 
Goya,  61,  256,  269-270,  272 

—  Dos  de  Mayo,  270 

—  Portraits  of  Osuna  Family,  269 

-  Rustic  Fetes,  269 
Granada,  257,  285,  286   - 
Greek,  the,  311 

Guadarrama  mountains,  234,  307 
Guernica,  85-118 

Casa  de  Juntas,  101 

-  Church  of,  98,  99 

-  Theatre,  114 
—  Tree  of,  89,  101 

Guipuzcoa,  33,  54 


320 


A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 


HARDY,  Thomas,  317 
Heat,  253-256 
Hendaye,  17 

IGNACIO  TABUYO,  311 
Infante  Alonso,  the,  212 
Iron  mines,  39,  52 
Iru  Damacho,  143,  311 
Irun,  17 
Izurza,  152 

—  Church  of,  152 

—  Padre  of,  152 

JACOBS,  W.  W.,  317 
James,  his  personality,  2 
Japanese  language,  143 
Jos6  the  Carabinero,  134-138 

-Don,  94-119 
Juan  II.,  King,  208 

Katalin,  311 
King  Juan  II.,  208 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  317 
Knife,  the,  43,  65 
fear  of  the,  129 

La  del  Panuelo  Rojo,  311 
Landes,  the,  13,  14,  164 
Lanterns  of  churches,  35 
Las  Arenas,  48,  64,  72,  313-314 
Las  Huelgas,  Convent  of,  144,  201, 

202,  203-205 
Leon,  9,  11 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,  16,  220,  264, 

265 

Magdalene,  220 

Lequeitio,  97,  119,  121-130 

Church  of  Nuestra  Seiiora  de 

la  Asuncion,  123 

-  Fonda  de  Beitial,  122 
Logroiia,  54,  228 
London  Opinion,  192,  285 


Longships,  the,  319 
Lourdes,  16 
Luchana,  63 
Luco,  167 

MADRID,  235-305 

—  Botanical   Garden,  247,  254, 
262 

British  Consulate,  251 

-  Buen  Retire,  240 

-  Calle  de  Alcala,  244 

—  Calle  Mayor,  238 

—  Carrera  de  San  Jeroniino,  240 

Casa  de  Ayuntamiento,  239 

Hotel  del  Universe,  248 

-  House  of  the  Bomb,  276 

—  Ministerio  de  Guerra,  253 
la  Gobernacion,  239 

Museo  de  Arte  Moderno,  280- 

281 

-  Palacio  del  Congress,  240 

-  Paseo  de  Castellana,  244 

del  Prado,  245 

de  Recoletos,  273 

—  Plaza  de  la  Independencia,  246 
de  las  Cortes,  254 

—  Mayor,  277-278 

-  Prado,  240 

-  Museum,    95,    246-247, 
262-272 

-  Puente  Verde,  237 

-  Puerta  de  Alcala,  246 

del  Sol,  239-240,  256 

-  Rastro,  278-280 

—  Royal  Armoury,  280 
Gardens,  238 

-  Palace,  235, 241,  243, 

-  Salon  del  Prado,  257 
Malzaga,  140 
Manaria,  156-157 

—  Casa  Municipal,  156 
Padre  of,  155 


INDEX 


327 


Manet,  269 
Mantegna,  270 
Mantilla,  the,  18 
Manuel,  165 
Margarita,  134-136 
Maria  Teresa,  92 
Matadores,  273 
Medina,  228,  234,  307 
Mehalah,  285 
Memling,  270 
Mendaro,  37 
Meringas,  232 
Merluza,  22 
Morton,  Mr.,  53,  310 

—  young,  53,  311 
Miguel,  133-138 
Millet,  J.  F.,263 
Minano,  167 

Minones,  33 
Miqueletes,  33 

Miraflores,  La  Cartuja  de,  144, 208- 
217 

—  compared  with  Las  Huel- 
gas,  215-217 

Miranda  de  Ebro,  177,  308 
Money,  changing,  19 
Monks  of  La  Cartuja,  211 
Monte  Igueldo,  27 

-  Urgull,  24 

Moorish  work,  201,  284,  291,  299 

Moors,  the,  205,  294 

Moslems,  295 

Mosquitos,  129 

Motrico,  139 

Mountains,  first  sight  of,  15,  16 

-  Cantabrian,  34,  54,  161,  168 
Mozarabic  mass,  294-295 
Mundaca,  105,  120 

Murillo,  95,  108,  272 
Muzdrabe,  294 

NANCLARES,  176 


Navarra,  54 
Nervion,  the,  39 

OCHANDIANO,  164 

Olives,  22,  229 
Ondarroa,  138 

Fonda  Aspilza,  138 

Ordufia,  308 

Pena  de,  309 

Orio,  35 

Oroncillo,  the,  180 
Oxen,  17,  39,  120 

PANCORBO,  181,  210 

-  Pass  of,  180 
Pasajes,  20 
Pedernales,  105 
Pelota,  61-63,  80,  99-100,  142 
Pendeen,  319 
Philip  IV.,  212 
Picadores,  273 

Pictures,  a  collector  of,  108-110 
Pierre  Loti,  27 
Pilot,  the,  312 
Plencia,  59 
Policemen,  30,  41 
Porpoises,  317 
Porters,  21,  40 

Portico  of  Basque  churches,  35 
Portugalete,  43,  64,  74,  314 
Processions,  66-67,  301-303 
Puebla  de  Arganzon,  176 
Puvis  de  Chavannes,  12,  272 
Pyrenees,  the,  15 

QUEEN    OF    SPAIN,    the,    137, 

166 

Quinta,  the,  103 
Quixote,  Don,  272 

RAMON,  115 

Kamuntcho,  27 


328 


A   SPANISH   HOLIDAY 


RetaUo  of  Spanish  churches,  28 
Ribera,  272 
Rioja  wine,  136 
Road,  the,  34,  131,  167 
Rubens,  95,  108 

SACRISTANS,  28,  174,  189,  297 
Sailors'  Institute,  the,  45,  314 
San  Nicolas,  313 

-  Pedro  de  Cardena,  222 
San  Sebastian,  20-33 

Casino,  27,  29 

Church  of  Buen  Pastor, 

25 

of  Santa  Maria,  28 

of  San  Vicente,  28, 

29 

Miramar,  27 

Plaza  de  Guipiizcoa,  29 

Santander,  54 
Santa  Olalla,  184 
Sargent,  Mr.,  265,  272 
Segovia,  144 
Serenos,  119,  145,  146 
Seville,  285,  286 
Smuggling,  27 
Sociedad  Bilbaina,  69-70 
Soldiers,  169,  195,  294,  300,  301 
Song  of  the  Tree,  104 
Spain,  approach  to,  13-17 

—  character   of,   173,   187,    188, 
242-245 

climate  of,  25 

—  Queen  of,  137,  166 

—  railway  travelling  in,  20,  31, 
32,  178,  179,  224,  225,  305,  306 

—  religion  in,  242-244,  289,  295 
Spanish  churches,  28,  174,  175,  187 

-  houses,  25,  252,  253,  272 

-  painters,  262-272,  280-281 
pronunciation,  203 

St.  Bruno,  210,  211,  212,  216 


St.  Christopher,  298 

-  Ives,  121,  122,  320 

-  a  Basque,  121,  122 
Bay,  182 

Teresa,  272 

Street,  G.  E.,  290 
Swiss  Cows,  14,  136,  163 

TAGUS,  the,  283,  284,  290,  293,  297, 

300,  304 
Threshing,  85 
Tintoretto,  108 
Titian,  265,  266,  271 

Bacchanal,  271 

Fecundity,  271 

-  Venus,  266 
Toledo,  144,  283-304 

-  Alcdntara  Bridge,  284,  301 

-  Alcdzar,  284,  300 

Arco  de  la  Sangre  de  Cristo, 

293 

-  Cathedral,  286-290,  294,  297- 
299 

-  Capilla  Mayor,  288,  297 
—  Chapel  of  San  Juan,  298 

compared  with   Burgos, 

286-287 

Figure    of    St.  Christo- 
pher, 298 

-  Puerto  del  Reloj,  287 

-  Sala  Capitular,  299 

-  Treasury,  298-299 
Church  of    El    Cristo  de  la 

Luz,  292-293 
San  Juan  de  los  Reyes, 

296-297,  300 

Santiago,  284,  291 

Santo  Tome,  296,  297 


—  Diputacion,  291 
-  Fonda  del  Lino,  284 

Hospital  of  San  Juan  Bautista, 

284 


INDEX 


329 


Toledo,  Plaza  de  Zocodover,  284, 
293,  301-304 

—  Posada  de  la  Sangre  de  Cristo, 
293 

-  Puente  de  San  Martin,  300 

-  Puerta  del  Sol,  284,  301 
Toreros,  275 

Travelling  companion,  a,  9 
Tree  of  Guernica,  the,  101-104 
Tres-Cruces,  121 
Tunny  boats,  317 

URBINA,  167 
Urquiola,  161,  162 
Ushant,  318 

VALLADOLID,  144,  233,  308 

Van  der  Weyden,  270 

Vela,  the,  26 

Velazquez,  247,  262,  268,  271 

Las  Hilanderas  ( Tapestry  Wea- 
vers), 266 

Las  Lanzas  (Surrender  of 

Breda),  262,  263 

-  Las  Meninas,  112,  267-268 

-  Los  Borrachos  (The  Topers),  267 
—  Medici  Villa  Gardens,  267 

Venus,  266 

Venta  de  Baiios,  231 
Vestments,  175,  220 
Vicente,  160-167 
Villar-real,  164,  166,  167 
Vineyards,  12 


Virgin  of  Carmen,  303 

Vitoria,  53,  54,  168-176 

battlefield  of,  176 

—  Canton  de  Soledad,  173 
Cathedral    of    Santa    Maria, 

174 
Church  of  San  Miguel,  172- 

173 

Hotel  PallarSs,  168 

Villa  Suso,  173 

Vizcaya,  33,  54,  128 

WATER,  251 

Wellington,  168,  172,  176,  201 
Whales,  317 
Wine,  22,  30 
Wolf,  the,  319 
Wolves,  162 

Women,  Basque,  36,  119 
-  of  Toledo,  292,  294 
Wormann,  173 

XIMKNA,  201,  222,  223 

YNOSO,  308 
Yzarra,  308 

ZADORRA,  the,  176 
Zaragoza,  177 
Zortzico,  the,  112,  127 
Zuazo,  308 
Zuloaga,  272 
Zurbaran,  272 


22 


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Edinburgh  <V  London 


YC  76079 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


